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KINGS COLLEGE ALUMNI 



BY 



LEONHARD FELIX FULD, LL.M., Ph. D. 

Examiner, Municipal Civil Service Commission, Netv York 
Sometime University Scholar in Administrative Lanv, Columbia UnivtrsUy 



[Copyright 1913 9Y Leonhard Felix Fuld] 



NEW YORK 
1913 






KINGS COLLEGE ALUMNI 
CLASS OF 1758 

Joshua Bloomer 

JOSHUA BLOOMER was bora in Rye, Westchester County, 
New York, in 1735, and lived there until he came to New York 
to attend college. After graduating from Kings College with the 
degree of bachelor of arts, he entered the provincial service of the 
colony of New York. In 1758 he was commissioned a lieutenant 
of Captain Reuben Lockwood's company, raised in Westchester 
County, and in 1759 he raised and became captain of a company 
of ninety-two men, for which he received a bounty of 1,462 pounds. 
This company participated in the campaign of May 14, 1759. In 

1760, Captain Bloomer again raised a company of ninety- two men 
for which he received a bounty of 1,472 pounds, and in the same 
year he was commissioned a major of the first provincial regiment. 
He was awarded the degree of master of arts by Kings College in 

1 76 1, and in the same year became a major of the second regiment 
of the forces in the pay of the province of New York. For the 
next few years he was a merchant in New York City. In 1765, 
Mr. Bloomer went to England for ordination and upon his return 
to America, in 1769, he settled in Jamaica as rector of the church 
in that town, his salary being paid partly by the inhabitants of 
Jamaica and partly by those of Flushing. In 1790 Columbia Col- 



2 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept, 

lege conferred upon him the honorary degree of doctor of sacred 
theology, and in the same year he died in Jamaica at the age of 
fifty-five. 

Isaac Ogden 

Isaac Ogden was a member of the Ogden family of Connecticut, 
which emigrated to New Jersey from Long Island, to which they 
had removed in 1642. John Ogden received in 1664 a patent for 
the tract between the Raritan River and the Passaic River from 
Governor Richard Nicolls, which was subsequently ratified by Sir 
George Carteret. Two years later the country was settled by a 
large emigration from the old New Haven colony, the first settlers 
founding the city of New Worke or Newark. Isaac Ogden was a 
descendant of John Ogden in the fifth generation and a son of 
David Ogden, an alumnus of Yale College in the class of 1728. 
David Ogden had become the leader of the bar in New Jersey, and, 
in addition to being a member of the King's Council, he was in 
1772 appointed a judge of the supreme court of New Jersey. At 
the outbreak of the American Revolution, David Ogden bade adieu 
to his home and sought refuge under the protection of the British 
in New York. Of his five sons, Isaac and two others joined their 
father, while the other two became officers in the American army. 

Isaac Ogden, after graduating from Kings College in 1758, was 
admitted to practice in New Jersey and was already a lawyer of 
considerable prominence in Newark when the Revolution broke out. 
He had served as clerk of the Supreme Court and as a member of 
the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, and his legal ability was 
recognized by his. companions. At the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion, however, he joined his father in New York and remained there 
under the protection of the British until the end of the war. Nor 
was he satisfied with mere neutrality. He was not only a loyalist, 
but an active and determined one. His father was a member of 
the board of refugees established in New York in 1799, composed 
of delegates from the loyalists of the different colonies and of 
which Governor Franklin was at one time president, and Isaac 
Ogden was equally active. Hamilton said of Isaac, in 1777, that 
he is " one of the most barefaced, impudent fellows " that ever 
came under his observation, and his letters to Galloway in 1778 
bear testimony to the truth of this assertion. 



1907] Kings College Alumni 3 

After the war, Isaac Ogden and his father went to England. 
Here the- elder Ogden presented his claim to the British government 
for the losses he had suffered by reason of his loyalty. He was, 
however, quite willing to accept in settlement a sum considerably 
less than the 18,528 pounds he at first demanded. After their 
return to America, in 1790, the father took up his residence in 
Queens County, Long Island, where he lived until the advanced age 
of ninety-three, and the son Isaac, like so many of the loyalists^ 
went to Canada, where he received an appointment as judge of the 
supreme court, a position which he held until his death. He died 
during a visit to England. Isaac Ogden was twice married, first 
to Mary, daughter of the Rev. Isaac Browne, and secondly to 
Sarah Hanson. By his first marriage he had three, and by his 
second, five children. 

Samuel Provoost 

Samuel Provoost was a descendant of William Provost, who 
resided in Paris at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
August 24, 1572. The family were Huguenots, but succeeded in 
making their escape. He married a lady by the name of Tarn 
Waart, with whom, in 1634, he came to New York. The name of 
Provost may be seen in Rouen and elsewhere in France to this day 
in the various forms Prevot, Prevort, Prevost, and Provost. John 
Provost, fourth in descent from David, the first settler in America 
of whom we have any authentic record and the father of the future 
bishop, was a wealthy merchant and for many years one of the 
governors of Kings College. His wife, Eva, was a daughter of 
Harmaans Rutgers. Samuel was their eldest son. He was born 
in the city of New York, February 26, 1742. Although the young- 
est but one of his class, he graduated at its head. 

In the summer of 1761, young Provoost sailed for England and 
in November of the same year entered St. Peter's College, Cam- 
bridge. He soon became a favorite with the master. Dr. Edmund 
Law, afterwards bishop of Carlyle. John Provost being a rich 
merchant, his son enjoyed in addition to a liberal allowance the 
advantage of an expensive tutor in the person of Dr. John Jebb, 
a man of profound learning and a zealous advocate of civil and 



4 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

religious liberty, with whom he corresponded until the doctor's 
death. In 1766 Mr. Provoost was admitted to the order of deacon 
at the Chapel Royal of St. James Palace, Westminster, by the 
bishop of London, and during the month of March he was ordained 
at the King's Chapel, Whitehall, by the bishop of Chester. In St. 
Mary's Church, Cambridge, he married on the sixth of June of the 
same year (1766) Maria, daughter of Thomas Bousfield, a rich 
Irishman residing on his estates near Cork and a sister of his 
favorite classmate. The young clergyman with his wife sailed 
in September for New York, and in December he became assistant 
minister of Trinity parish, which then embraced St. George's and 
St. Paul's. 

Some time previous to the commencement of the Revolutionary 
War, Provoost's connection with Trinity Church was dissolved. 
The reasons assigned for the severance of this connection are, 
first, that a portion of the congregation charged him with not being 
sufficiently evangelical in his preaching, and secondly, that his 
patriotic views of the then approaching contest with the mother 
country were not in accord with those of a majority of the parish. 
Before the separation of 1774, Mr. Provoost purchased a small 
place in Dutchess, now Columbia County, near Claverack, and 
removed there with his family. At East Camp, as his rural 
retreat was called, the patriot preacher occupied himself with 
literary pursuits and with the cultivation of his farm and gar- 
den. He was an ardent disciple of Linnaeus, and he possessed 
for that period a large and valuable library. Provoost was per- 
haps the earliest of American bibliophiles. Among his beloved 
books were several magnificent Baskervilles, numerous volumes of 
sermons and other writings of English bishops, including the scarce 
octavo edition of the poems of the eccentric Richard Corbet, the 
rare Venetian illustrated Dante of 1547, Rapin's England in five 
noble folios, a collection of Americana and Elzeviriana and not a 
few incunabula, including the Sweynheym and Pannartz imprint of 
1470. These were chiefly purchased while he was a student at 
Cambridge and contained his armorial book-plate with his name. 
It was not until 1760 that he adopted the additional letter which 
appears in his later book-plate and signatures. 



1907] Kings College Alumni 5 

While in the enjoyment of his books and farm and finding hap- 
piness in sight of his growing family, Provoost occasionally filled the 
pulpits of some of the churches then existing in that part of the 
diocese — at Albany, Catskill, Hudson and Poughkeepsie. In 1775, 
among his literary recreations was the translation of favorite 
hymns into Latin, French and Italian; also the preparation of an 
exhaustive index to the elaborate Historia Plantorum of John Ban- 
shire, whom he styles the prince of botanists on the fly-leaf of the 
first volume of the work. To the year 1776 belong those patriotic 
sentiments expressed in letters and other written memoranda which 
were reprinted in the eighteenth volume of the New York Genealog- 
ical and Biographical Reviezv. 

Mr. Provoost was proposed as a delegate to the provincial con- 
gress in 1777, but he declined. He also declined an invitation to 
become chaplain of the convention which met in 1777 and framed 
the constitution of the State of New York, because he thought that 
clergymen should not meddle in political matters. But at about 
the same time he deemed it in no way inconsistent with his clerical 
character to bear arms against the enemies of his country. After 
the British burned Esopus on the Hudson, he joined his neighbors 
in their pursuit. Mr. Provoost was also proffered in 1777 the 
rectorship of St. Michael's Church, Charleston, South Carolina, 
and in 1782 that of King's Chapel, Boston, where his patriotic 
principles and practices were strong recommendations, but he 
declined both calls on the ground that he was unwilling to avail 
himself of his politics for acting towards his brethren in a manner 
that might be imputed to mercenary views and an ungenerous desire 
of rising on their ruin. 

After the colonies had gained their independence and New 
York had been evacuated by the British and their loyalist allies, 
Mr. Provoost was unanimously elected rector of Trinity Church, 
January 13, 1784, and immediately removed with his family to the 
city and entered upon the duties of the office, preaching his first 
sermon on the Sunday following, from the text " Behold, how good 
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ! " 
There were no Tories there on that morning and many friends of 
their country met that day for the first time in years. The rector of 



6 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

Trinity received many other marks of the high esteem in which 
he was then and always held by his Whig contemporaries. Before 
the close of the year Mr. Provoost was made a member of the 
board of regents of the University of New York and when the 
Continental Congress removed from Trenton to New York, he 
was, in November, 1785, chosen its chaplain. In the summer of 
1786 he was selected by the diocesan convention which met at that 
time as the first bishop of New York. The choice seems to have 
been made by a simple resolution, resolving that the Rev. Mr. Pro- 
voost be recommended for episcopal consecration. There is no 
record of the ballot. Three weeks later he received from the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania the degree of doctor of divinity. In No- 
vember of the same year Provoost proceeded to England in com- 
pany with his friend. Dr. William White, They arrived in London 
on the twenty-ninth of that month, and after the various prelimi- 
naries had been duly settled, including their presentation to the 
primate by John Thomas, the American minister, who was par- 
ticularly polite to Provoost and White, although he was opposed 
to the Protestant Episcopal Church, they were consecrated in the 
Chapel of Lambeth Palace, February 4, 1787, Provoost being now 
the first Protestant Episcopal bishop of New York. 

Bishop Provoost immediately resumed his duties as rector of 
Trinity Parish. He was one of the trustees of Columbia College 
appointed by the legislature on April 3, 1787, in the act reviving 
the original charter of that institution. Two years later, on the 
organization of the new Congress under the present constitution, 
the bishop was elected chaplain of the United States Senate. After 
his inauguration as the first president of the United States, Wash- 
ington proceeded with the whole assemblage on foot from the spot 
now marked by his statue in Wall Street to St. Paul's Chapel, 
where, in the presence of Vice-President Thomas, Chancellor Liv- 
ingston, Secretary Jay, Secretary Knox, Baron Steuben, Hamilton, 
and other distinguished citizens, Bishop Provoost read prayers 
suited to the occasion. During his presidency, Washington occu- 
pied a canopied pew in Trinity Church. The first consecration in 
which Provoost took part occurred in Trinity Church, September 
17, 1792, during the session of the general convention. As the 




THE RT. REV. SAMUEL PROVOOST, D.D. 

CLASS OF 1758 
From a Portrait in Vestrj' Room, Trinity Chapel 



1907] Kings College Alumni 7 

presiding bishop Dr. Provoost was the consecrator, Bishops White 
of Pennsylvania, Seabury of Connecticut, and Hudson of Virginia 
joining in the historic ceremony and uniting the succession of the 
Anglican and Scottish episcopate. The first cornerstone laid by the 
bishop was at the rebuilding of Trinity Church, August 21, 1788, 
and the last that of the present St. Mark's Chapel in the Bowery, 
April 25, 1795, and these edifices when ready for worship were the 
first and last consecrated by him. 

Bishop Provoost had three children, one of whom, Susan E., 
married George Rapalye, a graduate of Columbia College in the 
class of 1 791. 

Mrs. Samuel Provoost, a lady of many accomplishments and a 
personal friend of Mrs. Washington, died after a long and linger- 
ing illness on August 18, 1799. The death of his wife and declin- 
ing health induced the bishop to resign his rectorship of Trinity 
Church on September 28, 1800, and his bishopric on September 3, 
1801. His resignation was not accepted by the House of Bishops, 
by whom consent was, however, given to the consecration of Dr. 
Benjamin Moore as an assistant bishop. Provoost was subject to 
apoplectic attacks, and from one of these he died suddenly Septem- 
ber 6, 181 5, at the age of seventy-three years. Among a most 
interesting group of portraits of rectors of Trinity, including the 
first and the last, in the vestry room of Trinity Chapel, there is one 
of Bishop Provoost, which is here reproduced. 

Bishop Provoost was stately, self-possessed and dignified in 
manner, presenting in the picturesque dress of the day an imposing 
appearance. He was a fine classical scholar and thoroughly versed 
in church history and policy. He was never considered as greatly 
distinguished for his intellectual powers, and yet he was always 
looked upon in this respect as considerably above the average. He 
was a highly educated man, having enjoyed the best opportunities 
for improvement that could be furnished either in this country or 
in Great Britain. He was learned, benevolent, conscientious, fond 
of society and social life. Besides being well acquainted with 
Latin and Greek and Hebrew, he was proficient in French, German 
and Italian. 

He was a moderate churchman. Under his administration for 



8 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

seventeen years as rector, Trinity Church was rebuilt on the same 
site. During his episcopate of fourteen years, the church had not 
advanced as rapidly as during the same period under some of his 
successors. It must not, however, be forgotten that those were 
days of great difficulties and extreme depression in the church, and 
that the people of Pennsylvania threatened to throw their bishop 
into the Delaware River when he returned from England in 1787. 
While it can not be claimed that Provoost should rank with those 
eminent founders of the American Church, Seabury and White, or 
with epoch-makers like Hobart and Whittingham, it may with con- 
fidence be asserted that for elegant scholarship. Bishop Provoost 
had no peer among his American contemporaries. To his polished 
discourses he gave the greatest care and they are characterized by 
force and elasticity of diction, even if not rising to the rank of 
the highest order of pulpit eloquence. So little did he care for 
literary distinction, that he never printed a single discourse or 
brochure of any description. He translated Tasso's "Jerusalem 
delivered," for which congenial work he found ample leisure on 
his Dutchess County farm. It was never given to the world nor 
were any of the occasional poems in English, French and German 
mentioned by Wilson in his biographical sketch. He conversed 
freely with Steuben and Lafayette in their own languages and had 
several Italian correspondents, including Count Claudius Ragone. 
As a preacher, Bishop Provoost's chief attractions consisted in 
his imposing appearance, good voice, and felicitous command of 
language. He had little gesture and generally no great animation, 
though there were occasions on which his mind became considerably 
excited and he spoke with much more than his usual force and 
vigor. His religion was not characterized by any great fervor and 
both his theology and his standard of Christian character were 
probably about the same as generally prevailed in the established 
church of England at that day. Though Bishop Provoost prob- 
ably had little sympathy with the views and feelings of most other 
denominations of Christians, his general courtesy was never 
affected by any considerations merely denominational. For in- 
stance, he was in very agreeable and even intimate social relations 
with most of the clergymen of the Presbyterian and Reformed 



1907] Kings College Alumni 9 

Dutch churches and rarely made up a dinner party at which some 
of them were not among his guests. Bishop Provoost was a 
trusted friend of Washington, John Thomas, Jay, and Hamilton, 
one of whose sons was believed to be the last survivor of those who 
enjoyed a personal acquaintance with the bishop and had sat at 
his hospitable board in the Greenwich street residence where he 
died. 

Joseph Reade 
Joseph Reade graduated from Kings College in 1758. He was 
a lawyer by profession and resided in New Jersey, where he became 
a master in chancery. 

Rudolph Ritzema 

Rev. Joannes Ritzema, the father of our alumnus, Rudolph 
Ritzema, was a pious and learned pastor of the Collegiate Dutch 
Reformed Church in the city of New York before the Revolution. 
He was born in Friesland, Holland, in 1708, where he married 
Hilltje Dyckstra of the same place. He was educated in Holland 
and held many positions of trust in the church in New York. In 
1755 he was pastor of Harlem, Philipsburg, Fordham, and Court- 
land, and he held the position of minister of the Dutch church at 
Tarrytown, Westchester County, until the Revolution, when his 
labors there ceased, because in the controversy which preceded the 
Revolution he had acted uniformly with the Royalists. After the 
Revolution he lived at Kinderhook, where he died April 7, 1794, at 
the age of eighty-six. 

Rudolph Ritzema before the Revolution kept a military school 
in Tarrytown and later he became an officer in the service of the 
Crown. In 1775 he became lieutenant-colonel of the First New 
York Regiment, and on Augtist 8, 1775, four companies of this 
regiment embarked for Albany. Many of the men deserted before 
Ritzema reached Ticonderoga. In May, 1776, Ritzema sent an 
officer to Westchester Count}'- to apply to the chairman of the 
County Committee for such arms fit for soldiers' use as he may 
have collected by disarming disaffected persons in the county. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Ritzema married Anne Porter, and they 
had four sons. Fie died in England, in 1803. 



lo Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

Philip Van Cortlandt 

Philip Van Cortlandt belonged to a distinguished American 
family. The orthography of his surname is properly Corte-landt, 
the first syllable meaning in the Dutch language " short " and the 
second " land," the term expressing the peculiar form of the 
ancient Duchy of Courland in Russia. Oloff Stephensen Van 
Cortlandt came to New York in 1637. He was privy councillor 
of the States General of Holland and secretary of this govern- 
ment to the governor of New Amsterdam. He was in the military 
service of the Dutch West India Company, but was soon trans- 
ferred to the civil service as commissary of cargoes. He also 
received a grant of two large manors on the Hudson River — 
Yonkers and Van Cortlandt. 

Philip Van Cortlandt was a descendant of the first settler in 
the fifth generation and was born on November 10, 1739. He was 
a student at Kings College and received the degree of bachelor of 
arts in 1758 and that of master of arts three years later. At the 
outbreak of the Revolution he may have favored the popular cause 
at first, since, in 1775, he was a deputy from Westchester County 
to meet the delegates from other counties to appoint members of a 
Continental Congress. He adhered, however, to the Crown and, 
as a major in the third battalion of New Jersey volunteers, was fre- 
quently engaged against the Whigs in the field. After the peace 
he went to Nova Scotia and later to England. His estates were 
confiscated, and his claim as representative of the manor of Cort- 
landt was included in the forfeiture. He died on May i, 18 14, at 
the age of seventy-five, leaving his wife Catharine, the daughter of 
Jacob Ogden, whom he had married on March 2, 1762. Of his 
twenty-three children, five sons and eight daughters grew up. 

Samuel Verplanck 

Samuel Verplanck was of the fifth generation of that family 
in America and the second son of Gulian Verplanck and Mary 
Crommelin. He was born in the city of New York, September 19, 
1739. Samuel was sent after his graduation from Kings College 
to Holland, where he remained for several years in the family and 




SAMUEL VERPLANCK 

Class of 1758 
From a Portrait by Copley 



1907] Kings College Alumni 11 

counting-house of his maternal uncle, Daniel Crommelin, who was 
then at the head of the great banking and commercial house of 
Daniel Crommelin and Sons, of Amsterdam. While in Holland, 
on the twenty-sixth day of April, 1761, Samuel married his cousin 
Judith Crommelin, daughter of Daniel and Marie le Plastrier 
Crommelin. After completing his mercantile education and after 
extensive travels abroad, Samuel and his wife returned to this 
country in 1763. They made their home in the house of Samuel's 
father in Wall Street, which on the death of his mother became the 
property of Samuel. Samuel engaged in business as a wholesale 
importer and banker. The house and the garden which adjoined 
it were on the north side of Wall Street and are now the site 
of the Assay Office. A stable stood in the rear, on Pine Street. 
To the west was the City Hall, afterwards, in 1789, Federal Hall, 
where Washington was inaugurated. Samuel's land had a front 
of nearly seventy-five feet on Wall Street, of which nearly forty 
were taken up by his house. 

Samuel Verplanck was one of the twenty-four founders of the 
New York Chamber of Commerce in 1768, and was appointed in 
1770 one of the governors of his alma mater. His name is also 
to be found among those of the committee of safety of one hun- 
dred, who were chosen to take charge of the city government upon 
the seizure of the public buildings in May, 1775. He removed to 
Fishkill, Dutchess County, where he was a landholder, when his 
impaired health and the disordered state of the country induced 
his withdrawal from business. To his youngest brother, Gulian, 
who was born February 11, 1751, and who was but nine months 
old when his father died, Samuel was most tenderly attached. He 
carefully watched over him and guided him in his education, and 
after his graduation from Kings College in the class of 1768, he, 
with Bishop Moore and Gouverneur Morris, sent him to Europe to 
receive a similar mercantile training under his uncle, Daniel Crom- 
melin, as he had received. 

During the Revolutionary War, Verplanck's Point and Stony 
Point were occupied successively by the English and American 
armies. The Verplanck Point property was then in charge of 
Samuel Verplanck, acting as executor of Philip Verplanck, its 



12 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

late owner, who had devised it to his son Philip, then in his minority 
and living at the homestead at the mills, near Fishkill Plains. 
Mount Gulian, which Samuel received by gift from his father, was 
occupied during the war by Baron Steuben as headquarters. Here 
Steuben established himself and remained until the close of the 
war and the disbanding of the army of Washington at Newburgh, 
in 1783. At a meeting in that year, the Order of the Cincinnati 
was established at Mount Gulian. In May, 1883, the centennial 
of the order was pleasantly celebrated at the old house by the visit 
of many of its members. On this occasion the Cincinnati were 
welcomed by the late William Samuel Verplanck, who then owned 
the property. Samuel did not leave Mount Gulian until his son, 
Daniel Crommelin, made his home there in 1804, on removing from 
New York. 

Samuel Verplanck, who took no active part in the Revolution, 
is said by some to have been a Tory. Such, however, is not the 
case. He allowed his house to be taken as the headquarters for 
the American army. Had he been a Tory, the Americans would 
hardly have taken the good care of the property that they did. Be- 
sides, the lands of the Tories were very generally confiscated and 
we know that no property of this family was forfeited nor were 
proceedings instituted against it under the acts of forfeiture. 
Samuel probably remained in the Dutch Church, though he was in 
sympathy with the Episcopal. Both of the old churches at Fish- 
kill were objects of his bounty on an interesting occasion. In 1765, 
there died at the age of one hundred and twenty-eight, not far from 
Fishkill, one Egelbert Hoff, who had been a commufticant of the 
Dutch Church. Samuel had known Hoff well, and, in 1820, to 
commemorate his death, he gave to each of the churches a silver 
flagon. Samuel gave to Trinity Church, Fishkill, a glebe farm, 
which the corporation still holds. He also gave land to other 
churches in Dutchess County. Among the records of Dutchess 
County is a deed, dated March 23, 1779, by Samuel Verplanck, 
describing himself as merchant, gentleman, citizen of New York, 
burgher of Amsterdam, and one of the governors of Kings College, 
to Areaen Brinckerhoff and others as trustees for the congregation 
of the Reformed Dutch Church of Fishkill, Hopewell and New 



1907] Kings College Alumni 13 

Hackensack. The deed conveyed ten acres out of the John Way- 
farm at Hopewell, on which was built the church which is still 
standing and used by the people of the neighborhood. 

A fine portrait of Samuel Verplanck by Copley has come down 
to this date. It was painted about 1770. This portrait, which is 
reproduced herewith, is now owned by his great grandson, Samuel 
Verplanck of Stonykill, Fishkill-on-Hudson. Samuel Verplanck 
died at Mount Gulian, then the home of his son, on the twenty- 
seventh of January, 1820, in the eighty-first year of his age, and 
was buried in Trinity churchyard, Fishkill. 

Leonhard Felix Fuld 

CLASS OF 1759 

William Hanna 

WILLIAM Hanna received the degree of bachelor of arts from 
Kings College in 1759. The degree of master of arts 
honoris causa was conferred upon him in 1765 and by Yale Col- 
lege in 1768. 

Epenetus Townsend 
Epenetus Townsend graduated from Kings College with the 
degree of bachelor of arts in 1759, and received the master's degree 
three years later. In 1767 he went to England to take holy orders. 
He returned in the following year and entered upon his pastoral 
duties as Episcopal minister at North Salem, New York. In 1776 
he was sent to the Whig committee, but was dismissed. Three 
weeks after the Declaration of Independence he abandoned his 
pulpit, and in October he was a prisoner at Fishkill. In March, 
1777, he was removed to Long Island, and in 1779 he embarked 
with his family for Nova Scotia. The vessel foundered and every- 
one on board perished. 

CLASS OF 1760 
Samuel Bayard 
The same ship which brought to the western world and landed 
in New Amsterdam in the month of May, 1647, the last of the 



14 Columbia University Quarterly [Dec, 

Dutch governors of New Netherlands, had on board Stuyvesant's 
beautiful wife and his sister Anna, who was the widow of a 
Samuel Bayard. She was accompanied by her daughter Catharine 
and her three sons, Petrus, Balthazar and Nicholas. It has long 
been a tradition in the family that Samuel Bayard was a French 
Protestant divine and professor, who, with his wife, Blandina 
Coude, a lady of rank, fled from Paris to Holland during the re- 
ligious troubles which disturbed their native land in the sixteenth 
century. However, an endeavor on the part of the eminent geneal- 
ogist. General James Grant Wilson, to verify this tradition in The 
Hague, proved to be unsuccessful. The family name is variously 
spelled Bayert, Baird, Biart, Biard and Byard. 

Little is known of the life of our alumnus, Samuel Bayard. 
He was born in 1740, and successively held the positions of deputy 
secretary to the colony of New York and deputy register of the 
ordinary and prerogative court of New York, receiving his ap- 
pointment to the latter position in 1774. In the same year he was 
engaged in a controversy with other proprietors of lands in New 
York, and on behalf of himself and his associates submitted a 
memorial to the British government, praying to be put in quiet pos- 
session of a part of the tract called the Westenhook patent. After 
General Lee took command of the City of New York, in 1776, 
Bayard was made a prisoner and placed under guard at the house 
of Nicholas Bayard. Subsequently, Samuel Bayard entered the 
service of the Crown and in 1782 was a major of the King's 
Orange Rangers. 

Anthony Hoffman 
Anthony Hoffman was the fourth child of Col. Martinus 
Hoffman and Tryntje Benson, and a member of the fourth genera- 
tion of the Hoffman family in the United States. The family is 
of Swedish origin, the Scandinavian form of the name being 
Hoppman. Several individuals having the name of Hoffman 
emigrated to the Swedish colony in Delaware and of these some 
were transferred to New Amsterdam by Governor Stuyvesant 
when he conquered New Sweden. The ancestor of our alumnus, 
however, emigrated from Holland to Esopus, near Kingston, New 
York, in 1658, and later moved to New Amsterdam, where he 



1907] King's College Alumni 15 

was living in 1661, Martinus Hoffman, the grandson of Martin 
Hoffman, the first member of the Hoffman family in America and 
the father of our alumnus, moved from Kingston to Red Hook, 
Dutchess County, New York. Martinus Hoffman served succes- 
sively as justice of the peace, and judge of the court of common 
pleas in Dutchess County. 

Anthony Hoffman was born August 12, 1739, and was bap- 
tized at Camp Church. In 1760 he received the degree of bachelor 
of arts and in 1763 that of master of arts from Kings College, 
and from 1784 to 1787 he was a regent of the University of the 
State of New York. He lived in Red Hook, New York, and was 
a supervisor of the town of Rhinebeck from 1781 to 1785. He 
was a colonel in the army and served on several military com- 
mittees. He was a member of the first, third and fourth provincial 
congresses and was elected to the New York legislature in 1783. 
He owned a great deal of property in Dutchess County and many 
transfers and conveyances of land are recorded in his name in 
the county clerk's office at Poughkeepsie. In 1771 he was appointed 
loan officer of Dutchess County and took the oath prescribed by the 
act of the general assembly of the province of New York. 

Anthony Hoffman married Mary, daughter of Harmon Rut- 
gers, the third, of New York, and they had one child, Eliza, who 
married Nicholas Gouverneur Rutgers. Anthony's will, dated Feb- 
ruary 24, 1790, is filed in the Surrogate's Court at Poughkeepsie, 
New York. It was proved by John Ogden Hoffman on May 18, 
1790; hence the date of Anthony's death must have been 1790 
and his age at death fifty years. In his will he leaves legacies to 
his wife Mary and to his daughter and only child, no name being 
given, as well as to his sister and his brother. He also gives 
freedom to all his slaves and manumits them entirely. The signa- 
ture to this will was witnessed among others by Benjamin Kissam, 
who entered Kings College in 1775. 

Philip Livingston 
Philip Livingston was born in 1744. In 1763 he received the 
degree of master of arts from Kings College, having graduated 
three years previously. He was a member of the New York Pro- 



1 6 Columbia University Quarterly [Dec. 

vincial Congress, and a trustee of Columbia College from 1797 to 
1806. 

John Marston 
John Marston was born on December 5, 1740. He was the 
youngest child of Nathaniel Marston and a member of the fifth 
generation of the New York branch of the Marston family. He 
received the degree of bachelor of arts from Kings College in 1760, 
and like all of his classmates was awarded the master's degree three 
years later. He married Rachel Lawrence in 1768. He resided 
in New York and died there in the year 1797 prior to April 6, 
when a license to administer on his estate was granted to his sons 
Thomas and John, Jr. These two sons were members of the Com- 
mittee of Safety during the Revolutionary War. John Marston, 
our alumnus, had five children, three sons and two daughters. 

Robert Watts 
Robert Watts received the degree of bachelor of arts from 
Kings College in 1760 and that of master of arts in 1763. 

Isaac Wilkins 
Isaac Wilkins of New York was an Episcopal minister. He 
was born in Jamaica, West Indies, in 1741, and was the son of 
Martin Wilkins, a rich planter who died when his son was quite 
young. Isaac was sent to New York to be educated, and grad- 
uated at Kings College with the degree of A.B. in 1760. He pre- 
pared himself for the ministry but did not take orders. In 1763 
Kings College conferred the degree of master of arts upon him. 
Having settled in the county of Westchester, he was returned as 
a member of the assembly and served from 1772 to 1775, becoming 
the leader on the ministerial side. His influence with his asso- 
ciates and with his party was very great. When the question of 
appointing delegates to the Second Congress came up, he made a 
speech which was much admired by his friends for its eloquence, 
clearness and precision. Schuyler and George Clinton were his 
provincial antagonists in the debate. Mr. Wilkins's zeal and ex- 
treme loyalty, to which he occasionally gave utterance in essays, 



1907] King's College Alumni 17 

rendered him very obnoxious to the Whigs. It is a singular cir- 
cumstance that the youthful Hamilton, who was also born in the 
West Indies, undertook the task of replying to two of his political 
effusions. One of them, " Congress canvassed," which was signed 
A. W. Farmer, was extensively circulated, and it as well as the 
pamphlet about " The future of the controversy between Great 
Britain and the Colonies," was summarily disposed of whenever 
either of them fell into the hands of those whose measures were 
criticized and condemned. Both were burned in all parts of the 
country, and on some occasions the former was dressed in tar and 
turkey buzzard's feathers, nailed to the whipping post and set on 
fire, as the best means of showing the indignation of its author's 
treason and sentiments. As a result Wilkins found it desirable 
to leave America and go to England. 

In 1776 he returned to Long Island where he remained until 
peace had been reestablished, when he retired to Shelbourne, Nova 
Scotia. He remained in that province for several years and lived 
a part of the time at Lunenburgh. At a meeting of the wardens 
and vestrymen of the congregations of West Chester and East 
Chester on the seventh day of June, 1798, it was resolved that the 
said congregations do unite and associate in order to procure a 
clergyman to officiate for them. Accordingly on the ninth day of 
March, 1799, the Rev. Isaac Wilkins, A.M., was elected minister 
of the two churches. At a vestry meeting on the twenty-second 
day of July, 1801, it was resolved " that the Rev. Isaac Wilkins, 
being now in priest's orders and having officiated for us for two 
years past to our satisfaction be now called to the rectory of this 
parish." Wilkins died on February 5, 1830. His remains were 
interred on the south side of the chancel of St. Peter's Church under 
the following inscription : " This monument commemorates the 
filial piety of the Rev. Isaac Wilkins, D.D., the honest and able 
representative of this borough in 1775. ' I leave America and every 
endearing connection because I zvill not raise my hand against my 
sovereign nor will I draw my sword against my country. When 
I can conscientiously draw it in her favor, my life shall he devoted 
to her service.' A scholar, a gentleman and a Christian, he lived 
for 31 years the diligent and faithful minister of this parish. 



1 8 Columbia University Quarterly [Dec. 

Placed here as he beheved by his Redeemer, he was satisfied with 
his lot, nor ever wished nor ever went to seek a better living. Died 
5 February, 1830, ^tat. 89." His remains are deposited under 
the chancel of the old church beside those of his wife, Isabella 
Wilkins, daughter of the Hon. Lewis Morris. 

The Christian Journal for March, 1830, contained an interesting 
sketch of the career of our alumnus, from which the following para- 
graphs are taken : 

Although from early life of a religious turn of mind, much 
devoted to theological reading, attached to clerical society and 
cherishing an affection and a desire equal to his fitness for the 
ministry, it was not until he had attained to nearly three score 
years that Dr. Wilkins found himself sufficiently released from 
civil and secular cares to gratify his early and abiding preference 
for the ministry as a profession. He was ordained deacon and 
afterwards priest by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Provoost [of the class 
of 1758]. He continued in the exercise of his public duties until 
within a few months of his death, and was for many years the 
oldest surviving alumnus of Kings College. 

He explained and enforced the doctrines of the gospel, the dis- 
tinctive principles of our church and the whole range of Christian 
obligation and duty, with a clearness that manifested his own under- 
standing of them and with an earnestness that proved how deeply 
his heart was engaged in the work. He was conscious of the 
existence of no error in the faith or practice of the Church against 
which he would hesitate boldly and fearlessly to address himself. 
He saw nothing to be his own duty or that of his people to which 
he would not in a most uncompromising manner devote himself 
or which he would not most faithfully urge and enforce upon them. 
It has been said of him, and it is believed to have been most justly 
said, that had he lived in times of martyrdom there is not that 
thing which he thought it his duty to say or do which he would 
have left unsaid or undone, or an act or word which he deemed in- 
consistent with the most rigid demands of duty and of conscience 
which he would have done or said to save his life. His was a piety 
and virtue which would have remained unmoved when those more 
boasted might have found more plausible excuses for giving way. 

From the year 1801 until in the year 1821 he was obliged by 
the infirmities of age to decline. Dr. Wilkins was uniformly re- 
turned as the clerical deputy from the Diocese of New York to the 
General Convention and he attended the greater number of meetings 



1907] King's College Alumni 19 

of that body. There and in the diocesan convention he was an 
able and enhghtened advocate of sound principles of ecclesiastical 
polity and of such measures as in his conscience he believed to be 
most agreeable to them. Indeed, never had the church a more 
disinterested friend. He overlooked all selfish considerations tend- 
ing either to personal ease or to the point whither he thought him- 
self drawn by duty and conscience. The strength of his faith and 
the clearness of his religious views were eminently conspicuous 
during the progress of a most painful and distressing disorder 
towards its fatal termination. 

Isaac Wilkins had four sons and five daughters. The eldest 
son Martin was a distinguished member of the New York bar and 
the proprietor of Castle Hill Neck. The second son was Isaac of 
West Chester, who married Charlotte Seabury, daughter of the 
Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury. The third was the Hon. Lewis Wilkins 
of Windsor, Nova Scotia, member of the Assembly, Speaker of the 
House for that province from 1806 to 18 17 and judge of the 
Supreme Court. 

CLASS OF 1761 

Henry Holland 

HENRY HOLLAND was the third child of Lieutenant Henry 
Holland who was an officer in the New York colonial troops 
for more than thirty years before the winter of 1721, when he was 
sent by Governor Burnet to England with dispatches to the Lords 
of Trade. Lieutenant Holland was also a commissioner of Indian 
affairs from 1721 to 1726 and was in command of the garrison at 
Albany at the time of his death in 1732. 

Henry Holland, our alumnus, was an alderman of Albany in 
1727 and a sheriff in 1746. Subsequently he removed to New 
York and attended Kings College. He was a member of the 
Assembly from Richmond County from 1761 to 1768. In 1765 
he was one of the managers on the part of the Province of New 
York in the controversy concerning the partition line between that 
province and New Jersey. In 1770 he was a Master in Chancery 
for appraising and settling real estate by order of the court. He 
married on December 14, 1728, Alida Beekman, the daughter of 



20 Columbia University Quarterly [June 

Johannes Martense Beekman, and died in 1782, at the age of 
seventy-eight. 

Anthony Lispenard 

Anthony Lispenard was the great grandson of Antoine L'Espe- 
narde, who was a baker in Albany as early as 1670, and the son 
of Leonard Lispenard. He was born in 1753 and received the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts from Kings College in 1761. He mar- 
ried Sarah Barclay on December 10, 1764. He had three sons, 
Leonard, Thomas and Anthony, and two daughters, Alice and 
Sarah, the latter of whom married Alexander L. Stewart. He 
served as a presidential elector in 1800, and died in 18 17, at the 
age of sixty-four years. 

f 
Henry Van Dyck 

. There are three early families of the name of Van Dyck who 
lived in the colony of New York in the seventeenth century. The 
family of Hendrick Van Dyck moved to Albany, New York, the 
family of Jan Thomasse Van Dyck moved to Long Island and New 
Jersey, and the family of Franz Claessen Van Dyck remained in 
New York City for several generations. Henry Van Dyck, our 
alumnus, was a great-great-grandson of Franz Claessen Van Dyck. 
He was born in 1744 in Nassau Street, New York, and was a son 
of Richard Van Dyck. After his graduation from Kings College, 
Van Dyck moved to Stratford, Conn., where he married Hulda 
Lewis of that place. He studied and practiced law for a time and 
then studied for the ministry. He was one of the first three stu- 
dents ordained by Bishop Seabury in America in 1785. Rev. 
Henry Van Dyck was pastor of several churches in Connecticut, and 
also served as pastor at Poughkeepsie, New York, Perth Amboy, 
New Brunswick and Burlington, New Jersey, and at Newtown, 
New York. In 1792 he received the degree of S.T.D. from Rut- 
gers College. He died in New York City, September 17, 1804, at 
the age of sixty, leaving a widow, a son Richard, and a daughter 
Abby. Rev. Henry Van Dyck was buried in the family vault in 
Trinity Churchyard, New York City. The descendants of his son 
Richard now reside in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his grand- 



1908] Kings College Alumni 21 

daughter, Mrs. Cornelia Van Dyke Clarke was living in 1878 in 
Mount Holly, New Jersey, being the wife of Joseph Clarke of that 
place. A portrait of the Rev. Henry Van Dyck is in the possession 
of the Livingston family of New York. 

While he was rector of St. Peter's, Perth Amboy, and Christ 
Church, New Brunswick, New Jersey, he was chosen President of 
the Ninth Convention of the Church of New Jersey, held in Christ 
Church, New Brunswick, June 6, 1792. During the American 
Revolution, he was a loyalist, but in 1784 he was permitted to return 
to the State of New York by special act of the legislature. 

CLASS OF 1762 

Edward An till 

Edward Antill was a grandson of Edward Antill, a prominent 
merchant in New York City who came from Richmond, Surrey, 
England, in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The grand- 
father was born in 1659 and died in 1704, and in addition to being 
a prominent merchant, he was also a lawyer and a man of public 
affairs in the colony. Edward Antill HI, our alumnus, was the 
first son of Edward Antill H and Anne Morris. He was born in 
Piscataqua, New Jersey, on the eleventh of April, 1742. 

After graduating from Kings College, he was admitted to the 
bar in England, but shortly removed to Quebec, where he remained 
until the Revolution began. When that city was besieged by the 
American troops in the fall of 1775, he refused to respond to the 
call of the governor of the city to take up arms in its defence and 
was sent to the American lines, where he was at once assigned to 
duty as chief engineer of the army by General Montgomery. 
He was with that officer when he fell, and was despatched by Gen- 
eral Wooster to relate the particulars to General Schuyler and the 
Continental Congress. On January 22, 1776, he received a com- 
mission as Lieutenant Colonel of Colonel Hazen's second Canadian 
Regiment, and in May, 1776, General Benedict Arnold assigned him 
to duty as Adjutant General of the American Army in Canada. 
In the following December he was sent on a recruiting tour through 
New Jersey and the southern states with the approbation of Gen- 
eral Washington, who wrote him a commendatory letter in January 



22 Cohimhia University Quarterly [June 

8, 1777, and Congress voted him $2,000 for his expenses. He was 
among the prisoners captured by the British when General SulHvan 
led his expedition against Staten Island, August 22, 1777, and for a 
time was confined on one of the prison ships. His brother John, 
then in the British service, was sent to examine the condition of 
the prisoners, and the first person he saw among them was his own 
brother, whose release he soon effected. 

Edward Antill was licensed as an attorney in New Jersey at the 
November term 1783, and shortly afterwards he opened a law office 
in New York City. Later he removed to Canada, joining his 
brother John there. He married at Quebec, May 4, 1767, Miss 
Charlotte Riverain, daughter of Joseph Riverain, and died in the 
town of Saint Johns, on the Richelieu River near Montreal, May, 
1789, at the age of forty-seven years. He had been appointed a 
judge of the court of common pleas of Clinton County, New 
York, in 1789, but probably died before he could fill the office. 

Henry Cuyler 
Henry Cuyler was a son of Cornelius Cuyler, who was a grand- 
son of the original Hendrick Cuyler, a tailor, born in 1637, who 
came to Albany, New York, about 1664 and bought a lot on the hill 
on the east side of North Pearl Street, near State Street. The 
name Cuyler is derived from the German Keiler (wild boar). Our 
alumnus was born on August 15, 1735. 

William Cornelius George 

William Cornelius George came from Antigua and spent the 
early part of his college course at Yale. Subsequently he entered 
Kings College, and after being admitted to the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts in Kings College in 1762, he received an honorary ad 
eundem degree from Yale University in the same year. He 
perished in an attempt to land on Staten Island a few years after 
his graduation. 

John Grinnell 

John Grinnell served as Captain of the Third Regiment of New 
York Continental Artillery from 1775 to 1776. 



1908] Kings College Alumni 23 

Alexander Leslie 
Alexander Leslie was for thirteen years the head-master of 
the grammar school of Kings College, retiring in the year 1776. 

Leonard Lispenard 
Leonard Lispenard was born in 1743. He was the son of 
Leonard Lispenard and Alice Rutgers and was the great grandson 
of Antoine L'Espenarde, the first member of the family in America. 
He graduated from Kings College in 1762 and became a merchant. 
He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and owned the 
property known as Davenport's Neck in New Rochelle, New York, 
where he had a summer residence. He traveled in Europe ex- 
tensively and was a person of superior culture and education. He 
served as a delegate to the Provincial Congress of New York in 
1775, and he was a Regent of the University of the State of New 
York from 1784 to 1787. He was the treasurer of Kings College 
from 1775 until 1784, when he resigned the position. He died un- 
married in 1790, at the age of forty-seven. 

Daniel Robert 
Daniel Robert was a lawyer by profession and became a loyalist 
during the American Revolution. After the termination of the 
war be became His Majesty's Attorney General for the Island of 
St. Christopher's in the West Indies. 

CLASS OF 1763 

Abraham De Peyster 

A remote ancestor of our alumnus was a Landheer in Flanders. 
Subsequently the family was driven by the persecutions of Charles 
IX of France to Amsterdam, Holland, and from this city Johannes 
De Peyster, the progenitor of the family in America, came to New 
Amsterdam in 1645 on a visit, returning in 1652 to make the new 
world his permanent residence. 

Our alumnus, Abraham De Peyster, was the third child of Col. 
James Abraham De Peyster, and a member of the fifth generation 
of the family in America. He was born February 18, 1743. In 



24 Columbia University Quarterly [June 

1776 he entered the King's service as senior captain of the Fourth 
or King's American Regiment of New York Volunteers. He was 
second in command at the Battle of King's Mountain, about twelve 
miles northwest of Yorkville, South Carolina, on October 7, 1780, 
and after the fall of Col. Patrick Ferguson, which occurred early in 
the action, assumed the chief command. Captain De Peyster had 
been paid off on the morning of the battle, among the coin which 
he received being a doubloon which he placed in the pocket of his 
vest. While in the field a bullet struck the coin, saving his life. 
He went to St. John's, New Brunswick, at the conclusion of peace, 
and was one of the grantees of that city. He became treasurer of 
New Brunswick and a colonel in the militia. He died in that 
colony in 1798, his estate being sold by his administrator in 1799. 
He was married on August 2, 1783, to Catherine, second daughter 
of John Livingston, but died without issue. 

CLASS OF 1764 
Richard Harison 

Richard Harison held the following public offices during his 
lifetime: Secretary of the Regents of the University of the State 
of New York from 1784 to 1790; delegate to the New York Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1788; member of the New York As- 
sembly from 1788 to 1789; United States District Attorney for 
the District of New York from 1789 to 1801 ; Recorder of the 
City of New York from 1798 to 1801 ; Trustee of Columbia Col- 
lege 1788. He- also received the degree of D.C.L. from the Uni- 
versity of Oxford. His death occurred in 1829, at the age of 
82. Richard Harison was a lawyer of high repute, and it was in 
recognition of his labors in framing the Constitution that he was 
by appointment of Washington made the first United States at- 
torney for the district of New York. 

There is in the University Library a volume in the handwriting 
of Mr. Flarison entitled "Extracts from various authors upon 
several subjects." This volume shows that Mr. Harison was a 
careful reader on many subjects. 



1908] Kings College Alumni 25 

John Jay 

John Jay was the son of Peter Jay, a prosperous Huguenot mer- 
chant of New York. At the age of twelve he was placed under the 
tutelage of the Huguenot pastor at New Rochelle, under whom 
he acquired an excellent knowledge of the French language, and of 
the classics as well, so that when fifteen years old, he was able to 
enter Kings College. Two years later we find in the little old 
letter book of his father an item to the effect that " our Johnny is 
doing well at college. He seems sedate and intent on gaining 
knowledge, but rather inclines to law instead of to the ministry." 
In young Jay's veins there was no British blood, five of his great- 
grandparents being French and three Dutch, and as the result of 
an untimely insistence upon this fact in President Cooper's pres- 
ence, he was rusticated shortly before graduation; but he received 
his A.B. degree in 1764. 

As John Jay was destined to be a lawyer, his father entered him 
in the office of Benjamin Kissam, an eminent practitioner, where 
he studied for five years. After his admission to the bar. Jay's 
life history became a part of the history of his country. In 1774 
and again in 1775 he was a delegate to Congress; in 1776 he was 
a member of the Provincial Convention of New York; in 1777 he 
was Chief Justice of New York; in 1778 president of the national 
congress; in 1779 minister plenipotentiary to Spain; he served as 
United States Peace Commissioner from 1781 to 1783; United 
States Secretary of Foreign Affairs in 1784; delegate to Con- 
gress 1784; Regent of the University of the State of New York 
from 1784 to 1790; delegate to the Federal Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1787; delegate to the New York Constitutional Convention 
of 1788; Chief Justice of the United States from 1789 to 1794; 
United States Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain in 1794; 
Governor of the State of New York from 1795 to 1801. The de- 
gree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Harvard in 1790, by 
Brown in 1794, and by the University of Edinburgh in 1792. John 
Jay married a daughter of William Livingston. He died in 1829-at 
the age of eighty-four. 



26 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

CLASS OF 1765 

Egbert Benson 

Egbert Benson, the son of Richard Benson and Catherine Van 
Borson, was born in New York, June 21, 1746. He never married 
and died August 24, 1833, at the age of eighty-seven. In his 
early years he lived with his maternal grandmother on the corner 
of Broad and Beaver Streets, New York City. He attended an 
English classical school, where he prepared himself for college 
under the guidance of the Rev. Dr. Barclay, rector of Trinity 
Church, who was a relative by marriage. He was admitted to the 
Bar in 1769, and shortly afterwards removed to Red Hook, Dut- 
chess County, where he commenced the practice of his profession. 

In 1776, on the formation of the Committee of Safety in 
Dutchess County, he was appointed a member and chosen its chair- 
man. In 1775 he was chosen a member for Dutchess County of 
the Provincial Convention which met in the City of New York on 
the twentieth of April of that year for the purpose of choosing 
delegates to the second continental congress. He was elected May 
3, 1777, and appointed by the Convention on the eighth day of 
that month the first attorney-general of the State of New York. 
From 1777 to 1781 he was a member of the State Assembly for 
Dutchess County. On January 25, 1781, he was appointed by 
Congress to the office of procurator, whose duty it was to prose- 
cute on behalf of Congress all debts due, or frauds committed 
against, the United States. On October 26, 1781, he was ap- 
pointed a member of Congress from the State of New York under 
the confederation and he was reappointed in 1784. By virtue of 
his office of attorney general he was a member of the first board 
of regents of the University of the State of New York. In 1788 
he resigned his office of attorney general and was appointed one 
of the regents of the university, holding this position until 1802. 
In the same year he was again sent to Congress and remained there 
until 1792. He held various important offices under Congress and 
under the State of New York from this time until 1794. He was 
boundary commissioner between New York and Massachusetts in 
1784, and boundary commissioner between New York and Con- 



1908] Kings College Alumni 27 

necticut in 1790. In 1794 he was appointed by a majority of the 
council of appointment the fifth justice of the Supreme Court of 
the State of New York, which office he held until March, 1801, 
when he resigned on being appointed Chief Judge of the Second 
Circuit Court of the United States. He was deprived of this 
office in 1802 by the repeal of the act creating the court. In 1812 
he was again elected to Congress and attended the first session, 
but on account of impaired health he resigned in August of that 
year. He was a trustee of Columbia College from 1804 to 18 15. 
The degree of doctor of laws was conferred upon him by Union 
College in 1799, by Harvard College in 1808 and by Dartmouth 
College in 181 1. He was one of the founders of the New York 
Historical Society and its first president, filling this office for eleven 
years. There is a portrait of Benson in the possession of the 
Society. 

Robert R. Livingston 

Robert R. Livingston was born in the City of New York on 
November 27, 1746. He received his education at Kings College, 
where he graduated in 1765 with the degree of bachelor of arts, 
and three years later he received the master's degree both from 
Kings College and from Princeton. He entered the office of 
William Smith to study law, and in 1773 he was admitted to the 
bar and formed a partnership with John Jay. At the same time 
he held for nearly two years the position of Recorder of the City 
of New York, to which he had been appointed by Governor Tr}^on 
and which he resigned on account of the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion. In April, 1775, Livingston was elected a member of the 
Assembly from Dutchess County. In 1776 he was elected a Mem- 
ber of Congress. He was a member of the committee appointed 
to draw up the Declaration of Independence, which included Jef- 
ferson, Adams, Franklin and Sherman. He was a member of the 
committee of citizens of New York appointed to draw up the 
State Constitution, which was adopted by the convention held in 
Kingston. In 1777 Livingston was appointed chancellor of New 
York. He resigned his position as a delegate to the Continental 
Congress, but was again elected in 1779. In August, 1781, Chan- 
cellor Livingston was appointed Secretary of Foreign Affairs under 



28 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

the new United States Confederation, and he continued to hold this 
office during the next three years. In addition, domestic affairs 
were also in large part entrusted to him, and on his resignation in 
1783 he received the thanks of Congress, being succeeded in office 
by John Jay. 

As chancellor of the State it fell to the duty of Livingston to 
administer the oath of office to Washington, the first president of 
the United States. In 1788 Livingston was chairman of the State 
convention which adopted the federal constitution, as to which he 
shared the views of Jay and Hamilton. In 1794 Livingston was 
offered the position of minister to France, which, however, he re- 
fused, as he also did the secretaryship of the navy under Adams 
and Jefferson. In 1801, the term of his chancellorship having ex- 
pired, and a commission to France being again offered him, he 
accepted it and proceeded to Paris. Napoleon was at this time 
First Consul. While minister to France, Livingston negotiated 
the treaty for the Louisiana Purchase. In Paris Livingston formed 
an intimate acquaintance with Robert Fulton, whom he assisted by 
his counsels and his money in the construction of the first steam- 
boat. The famous Clermont sailed from New York City on Sep- 
tember 10, 1807, to the seat of Chancellor Livingston, one hundred 
and ten miles distant, where she remained over night before con- 
tinuing her voyage to Albany. She was named the Clermont after 
the upper Livingston manor. This he rebuilt for his summer resi- 
dence and here he passed the latter portion of his life, devoting 
his time to the study of improvements in agriculture and the arts. 

Livingston was one of the founders of the American Academy 
of Fine Arts and was elected its first president. He was also presi- 
dent of the New York Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts 
and a trustee of the New York Society Library. He received the 
degree of LL.D. from the Regents of the University of the State 
of New York in 1792, and was himself a regent of the University 
from 1784 to 1787. By Act of Congress his statue was placed 
in the Capitol at Washington as one of the two representative citi- 
zens of New York State, George Clinton being the other. Chan- 
cellor Livingston died suddenly at Clermont, New York, February 
26, 1813, at the age of sixty-six. 



1908] Kings College Alumni 29 

Henry Lloyd 
Henry Lloyd was born in 1743 and died in 1825, at the age of 
eighty-two. 

Arent Schuyler 
Arent Schuyler was the son of Philip Schuyler and Hester 
Kingsland. He married twice, his first wife being Helen Van 
Wagenen. He was arrested on July 11, 1777, and locked up in 
the Morristown jail as a disaffected person. After a month's de- 
tention he took the oath of loyalty to the patriot cause and was 
released. He is the only one of Philip Schuyler's descendants bear- 
ing his name who seemed to halt in loyalty to his country. 

CLASS OF 1766 
James Barclay 

JAMES BARCLAY served in the British Army during the 
Revolutionary War in the New Jersey Volunteers. He was 
taken prisoner on Staten Island in 1777 and was sent to Princeton. 
He was a son of Andrew and Helena Roosevelt Barclay, who 
were married in New York, June 14, 1737. His sister Sarah mar- 
ried Anthony Lispenard of the class of 1761. He had five sisters 
and four brothers, none of whom left any descendants. James 
Barclay married Mary Van Beverhout and had a daughter, Catha- 
rine Eliza, who, in 181 2, married James Roosevelt. 

Gerard Beekman 

Gerard Beekman's grandfather was Lieutenant Gerardus Beelc- 
man, who was born in Flatbush, N. Y., June 9, 1693, and married 
on October 9, 1718, Anna Maria Van Home. His father married 
Anna Van Home, October 26, 1745, and their eldest child was 
our alumnus Gerard, who was baptized in the New York Dutch 
Reformed Church on September 24, 1746. He married Cornelia, 
daughter of Lieutenant Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt and Joanna 
Livingston. 

The family lived just north of Peekskill, surrounded by Tories, 



30 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

and our alumnus was watched by the enemy and once summoned 
to Tryon's headquarters. The opportune arrival of the American 
troops saved him, however. He was first lieutenant in the First 
Battalion, New York Independent Militia, of the company called 
"Sportsmen," After the war he purchased part of the confiscated 
Philipse Manor near Tarrytown. From that time on he lived in 
the old manor house of Philipseburgh. His monument in Van 
Cortlandt Cemetery reads: Gerard G. Beekman, born September 
19, 1746, New York City; died June 22, 1822, at his seat in the 
town of Mount Pleasant; aged 73 years, 9 months, 3 days. 

Richard Nicholls Colden 

Richard Nicholls Colden was a member of the third genera- 
tion of the Colden family in America. His grandfather was Cad- 
wallader Colden, who was Lieutenant Governor of the Province 
of New York from March 20, 1761, until September 20, 1776. 
His father was Alexander Colden, the eldest son of Cadwallader 
Colden. Our alumnus was appointed an ensign in the Forty-second 
Royal Highlanders on the 27th of August, 1766. This regiment 
was stationed in Pennsylvania. He left the army at the close of 
1 77 1 or early in 1772, returned to New York with his family, and 
was appointed surveyor and searcher of customs there, which office 
he held at the time of his death. He married Henrietta Maria 
Bethune, a Scotch lady of the Isle of Man, while with his regiment 
in that place. His death was announced by Governor Tryon to 
Lord Germain on the 24th of August, 1777, and probably occurred 
a day or two before that date. He was thirty-one years of age 
at the time of his death. Two sons survived him, of which the 
eldest, Alexander, died without issue, and the second, Cadwallader 
R., was editor of the United States Sporting Magazinej published 
in New York, from 1835 to 1836. 

Richard D'Ollier 

Nothing further is known of Richard D'Ollier than that he 
received the degree of bachelor of arts from Kings College in 1766. 



1909] Kings College Alumni 31 

Edward Nicoll 
Edward Nicoll was a son of Edward Nicoll and Agnes de 
Meyer Nicoll. He was born August 29, 1744. His father was 
born February 20, 171 7, and died in 1797, and our alumnus was 
the second of nine children. In 1776 he was appointed a second 
lieutenant in the militia company raised in the North Ward of 
New York City. 

John Ray 
There was a man of the name of John Ray in Colonel Mal- 
colm's regiment of Continentals mustered in September, 1777, 
another in Van Woert's company of the Thirteenth Albany Regi- 
ment in the Saratoga district, another in Colonel William Williams' 
first Cumberland County Regiment, Guilford Company, but it is 
not possible to determine whether any of these was our alumnus. 
Our alumnus was born on August 9, 1731, and married Helena 
Roosevelt on December 24, 1786; she was the daughter of Jacobus 
Roosevelt and Annaetje Bogaert, his wife. John Ray attended 
the Presbyterian Church in New York, where one of his name was 
a trustee in 1759, but the name does not occur in the first New 
York directory. It is doubtful whether there was any issue of the 
marriage. One of the daughters of Col. Marinus Willett married 
a Ray, who may have been a member of the same family. 

Henry Rutgers 
Our alumnus, Henry Rutgers, was a member of the Rutgers 
family which came to Fort Orange in the year 1646. He was the 
only son of Hendrick Rutgers, who survived him. He was born 
on October 7, 1745, and entered the Continental Army at the out- 
break of the Revolution. He was still a captain of a company of 
grenadiers in 1776, and took part in the Battle of White Plains. 
He continued actively and usefully employed as an officer until 
the close of the war. Meanwhile, during the occupation of New 
York by the British Army, the Rutgers house was used as a 
hospital. At the end of the war Henry had become the owner 
of the homestead, and he kept bachelor's hall there until his death 
nearly fifty years later. He was possessed of great wealth, and it 



32 Columbia University Quarterly [March 

seems that he never engaged in any business, but found his time 
sufficiently occupied in the care of his estate. On July 27, 1790, 
President Washington and Governor Clinton, with the chiefs of 
the Creek Nation, reviewed a legion of General Malcolm's brigade 
and Colonel Bauman's regiment of artillery. The President signi- 
fied his full approbation of their soldierly behavior to Colonel 
Rutgers, who commanded them. It was perhaps in honor of this 
occasion that the Colonel ordered the portrait of Washington from 
Albert Stuart, which hung in the hall of the Rutgers house until 
1865. Colonel Rutgers took a leading and zealous part in the poli- 
tics of the country. He was a member of the Assembly in 1784. 
In 1800 he was again nominated by the Republicans. This cam- 
paign was especially exciting, as the legislature was to choose 
presidential electors and the result depended on the vote of New 
York. A great effort was made in the city to defeat the Federalist 
Party, as the vote of the State turned as usual upon the contest 
in the metropolis. Colonel Rutgers was elected, as were also 
George Clinton and General Horatio Gates. They all voted for 
Republican electors and the result was the election of Jefferson and 
Burr. He was an assemblyman in 1801, 1802, and 1807. In 181 1 
he assisted in raising funds for building the first Tammany Hall. 
On June 24, 1812, he presided at an immense mass meeting in 
the park, called for the purpose of supporting the war and encour- 
aging the construction of fortifications. He was a regent of the 
University of the State from 1802 to 1826, and in 1828 was elected 
to succeed Clinton as president of the Public School Society. 

During all these years his property had been increasing in value. 
In 1793 he gave seven lots to the Dutch Church, but the gift lapsed, 
as the church was not completed within the specified time. A 
present of four lots to the Scotch Church failed for the same reason. 
Some years later he gave two lots to the Second Baptist Church. In 
1797 he made a gift of five lots on the northwest corner of Monroe 
and Rutgers Streets to the First Presbyterian Church, and he added 
two lots at another time. He contributed a large amount toward 
building this church and was one of its leaders. The new church 
edifice was erected on this corner forty years ago. It was finally 
sold and became St. Teresa's Roman Catholic Church. The old con- 



1909] Kings College Alumni 33 

gregation moved uptown and is now known as the Rutgers Presby- 
terian Church of Madison Avenue, Colonel Rutgers also gave the 
ground for the Market Street Dutch Church at the northwest corner 
of Market and Henry Streets. He made a large subscription to the 
building fund, and was an elder of this church from its organization 
to his death. The building belongs now to the Presbyterian Church 
of the Sea and Land. In 1806 he presented a lot to the Free School 
Fund Society for a school house, and an adjoining lot in 1808. He 
was always much interested in the college at New Brunswick, New 
Jersey, which was founded in 1780 as Queen's College by the Dutch 
Church, After the Revolution it lay dormant, until Colonel Rut- 
gers aided in calling it back to life. It received the name of 
Rutgers College from the trustees as a mark of their respect for 
his character and in gratitude for his numerous services rendered 
the Reformed Dutch Church, In 1819 he was a member of the 
committee appointed to enter into correspondence with citizens in 
various parts of the country with a view to devising some plan for 
checking the spread of slavery. There is scarcely a benevolent 
object or humane institution which he did not liberally assist. He 
relieved the poor individually and supported deserving young men. 
In person he was a tall, plain-looking man, with a kindly expression. 
Rutgers died in 1830, in the house in which he had lived 
nearly eighty years, his death occurring in the eighty-sixth year 
of his age. In his will he divided his " worldly estate with which 
God has abundantly pleased me " among his numerous relatives, 
but the largest share, including his mansion-house and all the land 
attached thereto, he gave to his great nephew, William B. Crosby, 
Colonel Rutgers had always lived simply and in his will he directs 
his executors to avoid all ostentatious display at his funeral. The 
sum thus saved he leaves to an infant school. It seems strange to 
read in a will made in New York in 1823 a clause which directs 
that "the negro wench slave named Hannah being superannuated 
be supported out of my estate." His real estate at his death con- 
sisted of 429 lots and was appraised at $907,949. After Colonel 
Rutgers' death, Henry Street was carried through the two blocks 
surrounding the house and this block on Henry Street was called 
Rutgers Place. The house was remodeled and its north side made 



34 Columbia University Quarterly [March 

its front. It stood thus with a block of ground in lawn and garden 
around it until after Mr. Crosby's death in 1865. A picture of 
the Rutgers mansion is given in "Valentine's Manual" for 1858, 
on page 268. It was then sold and torn down, its site being now 
occupied by tenement houses. Colonel Rutgers was a trustee of 
Princeton University from 1804 to 181 7 and a presidential elector 
in 1808, 18 1 6, and 1820. He was almost the last direct male 
representative of the family in New York City, and since his death 
the name has entirely disappeared here as a surname. In the New 
York directory of 1883 it occurs only in the Rutgers Female Col- 
lege and the Rutgers Fire Insurance Company. The former was 
named in honor of Colonel Rutgers at the instance of Mr. Crosby, 
who in 1838 gave the lots on Madison Street on which its original 
building stood. The insurance company was organized in 1853 
and took the name on account of the situation of its principal 
office in Chatham Square, near the old Rutgers farm. Its scrip 
and certificates of stock bear the Colonel's portrait. But while 
the family name has become extinct in this city, the descendants 
of the first Harman Rutgers bearing other names and residing here 
may be numbered by hundreds. There is a portrait of Henry Rut- 
gers in the seventeenth volume of the New York Genealogical 
and Biographical Record, facing page 82, and much of the present 
sketch has been taken from the same source. 

John Troup 
John Troup died in 1775. No biographical details are at hand. 

John Troup, Jr. 

John Troup, Jr., was born in 1747 and died in 181 7, at the age 
of seventy years. 

John Vardill 

John Vardill was born in New York in 1752, being the son of 
Captain Thomas Vardill, a native of Bermuda and at one time Port 
Warden at New York. His mother was Hannah Tiebout. He 
was an instructor at Columbia College from 1773 until he retired 
in 1776. His title was that of Professor of Natural Law from 



1909] Kings College Alumni 35 

1773 to 1775, when it was changed to that of Professor of Natural 
Law, History and Languages. In 1774 he embarked for England, 
being a loyalist. He was ordained at Stirbeck, Lincolnshire, and 
became the rector of an English church. He was elected assistant 
rector of Trinity Church, New York, but never returned to Amer- 
ica. He died in 181 1 at the age of fifty-nine, leaving his wife, 
Ann, and one daughter surviving him. 

John Watts 

John Watts was the third of the seven children of the Hon. 
John Watts, who was a member of Governor Tryon's council. 
Our alumnus married his cousin Jane, the daughter of Peter De 
Lancey of Westchester, on October 2, 1775; she was also a grand- 
daughter of Cadwallader Golden. He delivered the Latin saluta- 
tory at his graduation. From 1774 until the war he was recorder 
of New York. He was a member of the legislature from 1788 
to 1793, being speaker from 1791 to 1793. In 1792 he was a 
member of the United States Gongress. He was commissioned a 
Major of the New York militia by the British on October 23, 1776. 
He was also a Judge in Westchester Gounty. Thomas H. Bar- 
clay of the class of 1772, Kings Gollege, was his brother-in-law, 
having married his wife's sister Susanna, and her mother's brother 
was Richard Nicholls Golden of the class of 1776. Her sister, 
Margaret, married John, the son of Edward Antill of the class 
of 1762. 

Among the children of our alumnus were George, First Lieu- 
tenant United States Army Light Dragoons, aide de camp to Gen- 
eral Scott ; Robert, Gaptain Forty-first United States Infantry, 1813 ; 
John, Jr., who graduated from Golumbia Gollege in 1804; Susan, 
who married Philip Kearney ; Elizabeth, who married Henry Laight 
of the class of 1802 at Golumbia; and Mary, who married Frederick 
De Peyster. His daughter, Susan, was the mother of Major- 
General Philip Kearney of the class of 1833 of Golumbia Gollege, 
who was killed at Ghantilly. Our alumnus died September 3, 1794, 
at the age of forty-five, having been born August 27, 1749. 



36 Columbia University Quarterly [March 

CLASS OF 1767 

William Laight 
William Laight was born in 1751. He sympathized with the 
mother country and was appointed Assistant Brigade Major of the 
Militia on February 6, 1780, by General Pattison, the British com- 
mander. He died in 1804, at the age of fifty-three. He had a 
son, Edward W. Laight, who was born August 28, 1773, and who 
graduated from Columbia College in 1793. 

Peter Van Schaack 
Peter Van Schaack was born at Kinderhook, N. Y., in March, 
1747. In 1826 he received the degree of LL.D. from Columbia 
College. He served as a commissioner to revise the colonial stat- 
utes of New York in 1773, having been admitted to the bar in 
1769. He refused to take the oath to Congress, and left the coun- 
try in 1778. Through the friendship of his Whig friends, John 
Jay, 1764, Egbert Benson, 1765, Richard Harison, 1764, and Gou- 
vemeur Morris, 1768, all of whom had been students with him at 
Kings College, he was allowed to return in 1785 and practised his 
profession until his death, which occurred on September 17, 1832, 
at the age of eighty-five. 

CLASS OF 1768 

Charles Doughty 

CHARLES DOUGHTY received the degree of doctor of medi- 
cine from Kings College in 1772. He served as surgeon in 
the Third Bataltion of the Loyal British Volunteers commanded by 
Colonel de Lancey. As a loyalist in the service of the King he 
retired with the army at the end of the struggle, and thereafter 
ceased to be identified with the State of New York or with the 
United States. 

James Ludlow 

James Ludlow was the tenth child of William Ludlow and Mary 

Duncan, his wife. He was born July 2, 1750, in the city of New 

York. His father, William, was the third son of Gabriel Ludlow, 

who landed at New York on November 24, 1694, being one of the 



1910] Kings College Alumni 37 

early merchants of that city. The great-grandfather of our alum- 
nus was Thomas Ludlow, who was the first cousin once removed 
of Edmund the Regicide (161 7-1693). The parents of our alum- 
nus had a large family, of which James was the tenth child. He 
married on October 22, 1781, Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Harri- 
son and Elizabeth Pelham, his wife, of Newport, Rhode Island. 
James Ludlow had two children, Elizabeth, who died young, and 
Frances Mary, who married on October 29, 1807, Philip Thomas, 
of Cecil County, Maryland. They had six children, two of whom 
were Columbia alumni, — Philip William Thomas of the class of 
1832 and Ludlow Thomas of the class of 1835. 

Benjamin Moore 
Benjamin Moore, the second Protestant Episcopal Bishop of 
New York, and ninth in succession in the American Episcopate, 
was born in Newtown, Long Island, New York, on October 5, 1748. 
His father was Lieutenant Samuel Moore and his mother was 
Sarah Fish. His great grandfather was John Moore, an Inde- 
pendent minister and the first who was allowed to minister in New 
England, where he died in 1657. Our alumnus attended the 
schools of his native town, and graduated from Kings College in 
1768, receiving the degree of master of arts three years later. His 
theological studies were pursued at home under the direction of Rev. 
Dr. Auchmuty, rector of Trinity Church, New York, and after 
several years he engaged as private instructor in Latin and Greek 
in New York City. He went to England in May, 1 774, for episco- 
pal ordination; was ordained deacon in the chapel of Fulham 
Palace, June 24, 1 774, and was ordained priest at the same place five 
days later by Dr. Richard Terrick, bishop of London. He was 
married on March 20, 1779, to Charity Clarke, by whom he had 
one child, Clement C. Moore, class of 1798. Upon his return to 
New York he officiated at Trinity Church and its chapels and was 
appointed an assistant minister of that parish in February, 1775. 
He continued in this position until November, 1783, when he was 
elected rector. The election was contested and Dr. Provoost of 
the class of 1758 was declared rector on February 5, 1784. Mr. 



38 Columbia University Quarterly [June 

Moore thereupon resumed his duties as assistant minister, serving 
under Dr. Provoost until his resignation. On December 22, 1800, 
he succeeded the latter as rector of Trinity Parish, which rectorship 
he held until his death in 181 1. Although elected as the successor 
of Bishop Provoost, he was consecrated only as coadjutor bishop 
at Trenton, New Jersey, September 11, 1801, by Bishops White, 
Claggett, and Jarvis. 

Bishop Moore was a regent of the University of the State of New 
York from 1787 to 1802. He became a trustee of Columbia Col- 
lege in 1802 and held this position until he resigned in 181 3. He 
served as president of Kings College, pro tempore, in the absence 
of the president from 1775 to 1776. He was professor of rhetoric 
and logic at Columbia College from 1 784 until he resigned in 1 787. 
In 1789 the College conferred upon him the honorary degree of 
S.T.D. In 1801 he was elected president of Columbia College, and 
he held this position until 181 1. In 181 1 a stroke of paralysis 
incapacitated Dr. Moore for further service, and he asked for an 
assistant, whereupon Dr. John Henry Hobart was elected and con- 
secrated as assistant bishop of New York. On the death of Bishop 
Provoost on September 6, 181 5, Dr. Moore became the second 
bishop of New York. 

Bishop Moore died at Greenwich Village in New York City on 
February 29, 1816,. at the age of sixty-eight. His son, Clement C. 
Moore of the class of 1798 of Columbia College, was for many 
years professor of Hebrew in the General Theological Seminary of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York City, and Nathaniel 
F. Moore, the son of William Moore, a younger brother of our 
alumnus, was president of Columbia College from 1842 to 1849. 
There is an excellent portrait of Bishop Moore in "Universities 
and their sons" (Boston, 1898) at page 633 of volume one, and in 
volume two of the Quarterly, facing page 258. 

Bishop Moore wrote two volumes of sermons, which were pub- 
lished after his death by his son. He also delivered in 1803 the 
"Charge at the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
on October 5, 1802," and in 1793 he published a twenty-five page 
pamphlet containing his "Address to the Members of the Protes- 



1910] Kings College Alumni 39 

tant Episcopal Convention in New York City on February 16, 
1793," both of which are controversial pamphlets.* 

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 

We have three distinct and excellent sources from which a 
biographical sketch of Gouverneur Morris's life can be constructed, 
namely, the two volume edition of the " Diary and letters of Gouv- 
erneur Morris," edited in 1888 by his granddaughter, Anne Cary 
Morris; the three volume "Life of Gouverneur Morris with selec- 
tions from his correspondence," edited in 1832 by Jared Sparks; 
and the very interesting one volume sketch of Gouverneur Morris 
written in 1888 by Theodore Roosevelt. 

Gouverneur Morris was born on January 31, 1752, at the family 
manor house in Morrisania, New York City. He belonged by birth 
to that powerful landed aristocracy whose rule was known by New 
York alone in all the northern colonies. His great-grandfather, 
who had served in the armies of Cromwell, came to the seaport at 
the mouth of the Hudson while it was still beneath the sway of 
Holland, and settled outside of Harlem, the estate being invested 
with manorial privileges by the original grant of the governor. In 
the next two generations the Morrises had played a prominent part 
in colonial affairs, both the father and the grandfather of Gouv- 
erneur Morris having been on the bench and having also been mem- 
bers of the provincial legislature, where they took the popular side 
and stood up stoutly for the rights of the assembly in the weari- 
some and interminable conflicts waged by the latter against the 
prerogatives of the Crown and the powers of the royal governors. 
The Morrises were restless, adventurous men of erratic tempera- 
ment and strong intellect, and with far more than his share of the 
family talent and brilliancy, young Gouverneur Morris also in- 
herited a certain whimsical streak that ran through his character. 
His mother was one of the Huguenot Gouverneurs who had settled 
in New York, and it was perhaps the French blood in his veins 
that gave him the alert vivacity and keen sense of humor that dis- 

* For a fuller account of Bishop Moore's life and his services as third 
president of Columbia College, see the article by John B. Pine in the June, 1900, 
issue of the Quarterly. 



40 Columbia University Quarterly [June 

tinguished him from most of the great Revolutionary statesmen 
who were his contemporaries. He was a bright active boy, and was 
early put to school at the old Huguenot settlement of New Rochelle. 
After the usual preparatory instruction he went to Kings College, 
from which he received the degree of bachelor of arts in 1768 and 
the degree of master of arts in 1771, delivering the Commencement 
oration in the former year. Immediately after graduation Gouver- 
neur Morris studied law in the office of William Smith, afterwards 
Chief Justice of the Province of New York, but better known as 
the colonial historian of the State. The bar was undoubtedly the 
profession where the qualities of Morris's mind, his vigorous and 
concentrated intelligence, were most likely to excel. His elocution 
was animated and persuasive, his voice sonorous and pleasing, his 
figure tall and exceedingly graceful; all the attributes of the orator 
seem to have fallen to his share. Ambitious to excel, full of hope, 
with perfect confidence in his own powers and therefore entire 
self-possession, it was possible for him to say with all sincerity 
that in his intercourse with men he never knew the sensations of 
fear, or embarrassment. He was Hcensed to practice as an attorney- 
at-law three months before he was twenty in 1771. 

Although Gouverneur Morris was not a scholar of the highest 
standing, he early displayed a decided talent for mathematics, logic, 
and oratory, and was also a close student of Shakspere and the 
classics. When only eighteen years of age, he contributed several 
letters to the public press opposing the proposition then before the 
New York Assembly to meet the indebtedness incurred by the 
French and Indian War with interest bearing bills of credit. When 
the struggle between the colonies and the mother country arose on 
the horizon, Morris was at his wit's end as to what course he 
should take, but when the breach had actually been made, he did 
not hesitate long. He was a member of the first provincial congress, 
which met at New York in 1775 for the purpose of meeting the 
expense of the war, as well as a delegate to the second and third 
provincial congresses. He was also a delegate in 1 776 to the State 
constitutional convention and did noble work in that body, par- 
ticularly in securing full recognition of religious liberty as against 
the powerful anti-Catholic element under the leadership of John 



iQio] Kings College Alumni 41 

Jay. He was a member of the committee consisting of himself, 
John Jay, 1764, and Robert R. Livingston, 1765, which organized 
the government of the State of New York. He was chosen, in 
1777, to succeed his half-brother as a member of the Continental 
Congress and was a member of the military committee of that 
body, serving in the Congress until 1780. Through an injury re- 
ceived in falling from his carriage, Morris lost his left leg in 1780. 
From 1 781 to 1785 he was assistant superintendent of finance. He 
was a member of the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, in 
which he advocated a permanent executive, a freehold qualification 
for voters, and a life tenure of office in the senate. James Madison 
says that the finish given to the style and arrangement of the 
Constitution fairly belongs to Morris. The next two years he 
spent in travel abroad, " rubbing off," as he expressed it, " in the 
circles of foreign life a few of those many barbarisms which char- 
acterize the provincial education." He remained abroad ten years. 
From 1789 to 1792 he was Washington's confidential agent in Eng- 
land, and from 1792 to 1794 he was United States Minister to 
France. In 1798 he returned to the United States, and in 1800 
he was elected United States Senator, which position he held until 
1803, having an important part in advocating the purchase of 
Louisiana from France. He was canal commissioner of New York 
from 1810 to 1815. 

Gouverneur Morris married on December 25, 1806, Anne Cary 
Randolph of Virginia, by whom he had seven sons. He died in the 
family mansion at Morrisania, New York, November 6, 1816. 
There are excellent photographs of our alumnus in each of the 
three biographies mentioned at the beginning of this sketch.'*' 

John Stevens 
John Stevens was born in New York City in 1749. His grand- 
father, who bore the same name, emigrated from London, England, 
about 1695. His father was born in New York City in 1708, and 
was one of the commissioners for defining the boundary line be- 
tween New York and New Jersey in 1774. Our alumnus was 

* See also Columbia Univ^ersity Quarterly, vol. i, p. 234 f., and vol. 6, 
p. 21 f. in supplement, with portrait facing p. 23. 



42 



Columbia University Quarterly [June 



admitted to the New York bar in 1771 and began to practice law in 
New York, although residing in Hoboken, New Jersey. From 
1776 to 1779 he was treasurer of New Jersey, and also served as 
colonel in the army. In 1 790 he petitioned Congress for a bill that 
would protect American inventors, and through his efforts this bill 
became a law on April 10, 1790, thus introducing the present patent 
system of the country. He was devoted to mechanical inventions 
and took up the study of steam, taking out patents on marine engines 
under the new patent law. In 1798 he completed his first boat, suc- 
cessfully operating it on the Hudson River. He was associated in 
this work with his brother-in-law, Robert R. Livingston of the class 
of 1765, Nicholas I. Roosevelt, and Robert Fulton. In 1804 the 
second boat was constructed by Stevens, equipped with two screws, 
and with a propeller the design of which was for many years pre- 
ferred to later inventions. His original steamboat contained the 
first condensing double-action engine ever made in America and the 
multitubular boiler on which he secured United States patents in 
1803 and English patents two years later. After the death of the 
inventor, the machinery of his first boat, which is still preserved in 
Stevens Institute, was placed in a different hull and tried before a 
committee of the American Institute of New York, attaining a 
speed of nine miles an hour. 

In 1807, he built, with the assistance of his son, Robert L, 
Stevens, the sidewheel steamboat Phoenix, which was a few days 
behind Fulton's vessel in attaining the legal speed and was thus shut 
out from the Hudson River. Stevens, however, boldly steamed her 
around to the Delaware by sea, thus being the first to navigate the 
ocean with the new motive power. On October 11, 181 1, he estab- 
lished between Hoboken and New York the first steam ferry in 
the world, and two years later operated the first double hull ferry- 
boat carrying a paddlewheel driven by circling horses. In 18 12, 
assisted by his son, Robert L. Stevens, he made steam navigation 
on the Delaware a commercial success, and in 181 5 obtained a char- 
ter for a steam railroad from the Delaware to the Raritan, this 
being the first charter of its kind granted in America. Eight years 
later he secured another charter for a road running from Philadel- 
phia to Lancaster over the present Pennsylvania route, obtaining a 



1910] Kings College Alumni 43 

patent for the construction in 1824, and finally, in 1826, to prove 
its possibilities, he built a steam locomoti\'e with multitubular boiler, 
the first engine that actually pulled a train on a track in America. 
In a memorial addressed by him in February, 181 1, to the Erie 
Canal Commission, he advocated the building of a double track 
freight and passenger railroad between Albany and Lake Erie in 
preference to the canal. This document, which was published at 
the time, as well as in 1852 by the president of Columbia College 
and in 1882 by the Railroad Gazette, received the adverse report of 
the commission, including such men as DeWitt Clinton, 1 786, Gou- 
verneur Morris, 1768, and Chancellor Livingston, 1765. Stevens 
also designed the first iron-clad ship ever worked out for construc- 
tion. This embodied the Monitor type of the early date of 18 13, 
but though contracted for by the United States government, its 
specifications were so frequently revised by officials, that completion 
was never reached. In addition to the above, he was granted a 
number of patents on other inventions. 

Colonel Stevens married Rachel, daughter of John Cox, of 
Bloomsbury, N. J. He died in Hoboken on March 6, 1838. 
Among his sons were John Cox, 1803, James Alexander, 1808, 
Richard and Francis Bowes, 18 10, and Edwin Augustus, the founder 
of Stevens Institute, Hoboken. 

GULIAN VeRPLANCK 

Gulian Verplanck was born in New York City on February 11, 
1 75 1, being a son of Gulian Verplanck and his wife, Mary Crom- 
melin, and a brother of Samuel Verplanck of the class of 1758. 
After graduating from Kings College, he went to Holland to com- 
plete his education, and upon his return he carried on an extensive 
trade with that country for many years. He was a member of the 
New York State Assembly from 1788 to 1789 and again from 1796 
to 1797, being on both occasions elected speaker of that body, which 
was at that time a position of great dignity and influence. He was 
regent of the University of the State of New York from 1790 to 
1799, and on May 18, 1791, he was elected to the presidency of the 
Bank of New York. He was also a founder of the Tontine Asso- 



44 Columbia University Quarterly [June 

ciation, which was formed about 1794 by a number of merchants. 
In 1784 he married Cornelia Johnstone, by whom he had seven 
children. He died November 20, lygg, at the age of forty-eight. 

CLASS OF 1769 

Caleb Cooper 
Caleb Cooper received the degree of bachelor of arts from Kings 
College in 1769 and the degree of master of arts from his alma 
mater and from Princeton College two years later. He was prob- 
ably descended from John Cooper, who emigrated from England 
in the Hopewell in 1635. He was probably born in New York in 
1745, and had one son, Caleb, Jr., a merchant and assistant alder- 
man in the South Ward of New York City in 1802. 

CLASS OF 1770 

James Creighton 
James Creighton was the first secretary of police for Long Island 
in 1782, under the king, and went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the 
conclusion of peace. He died in Halifax in 1813. 

John Doughty 
John Doughty was a son of Joseph Doughty, a New York mer- 
chant, and was born in New York in 1750. He was a loyalist and 
officiated as a lay reader in the summer of 1770 in St. Peter's 
Church, Cortland, .New York. In the following summer he became 
rector of St. Peter's, Peekskill, having been ordained in England, 
but he resigned two years later. Thereupon he went to Schenec- 
tady, where he remained until 1777, when he obtained liberty to 
go to Canada. After reaching Canada, he was appointed chaplain 
to his Majesty's Royal Regiment at Montreal. In 1781 he went to 
England, but returned in 1 784 to Canada, where he continued until 
1793, when he resigned to go to St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn. In 
1795, however, we find him again at Sorel, Canada. He died in 
1826. 



igio] Kings College Alumni 45 

Jonathan Graham 

Jonathan Graham received the degree of bachelor of arts from 
both Kings and Yale in 1770. It is likely that he was a son of John 
Graham of the class of 1740 of Yale, who was a member of the 
family of the Marquis of Montrose which emigrated to America 
in 1 71 8. He was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, and preached 
in Suffield, where he also practised medicine. The date of his 
death is not known. 

Richard Harris 

Richard Harris was a merchant in New York City. He died in 
1780. 

William Hubbard 

William Hubbard was a loyalist and went to Nova Scotia, where 
he remained until his death in 1813. He was elected to the Assem- 
bly of the Province of Nova Scotia, and was also appointed Chief 
Justice of the Common Pleas and Judge of the Court of Claims 

of Nova Scotia. 

Stephen Lush 

Stephen Lush was born in New York City in 1753. He served 
on the side of the colonists during the Revolutionary War, being 
a captain of the New York Volunteers of 1776 and a major and 
aide-de-camp to Governor Clinton. He was also a member of 
Colonel Oliver Spencer's Continentals, known as the Fifth New 
Jersey Regiment, and was acting judge-advocate general in 1777. 
On October 6, 1777, he was taken prisoner at Fort Montgomery. 
He had been admitted to the bar in 1774, and after the war took up 
the practice of the law in Albany. He was elected to the New York 
Assembly in 1792, 1793, 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806, and was sena- 
tor from the eastern district, which included Albany, Clinton, Rens- 
selaer, Saratoga, Washington, and Essex, from November 4, 1800, 
to April 5, 1802. He married Lydia, daughter of Dr. Samuel 
Stringer, and had seven children. He died April 19, 1825, at the 
.age of seventy-two. 



46 Columbia University Quarterly , [June 

John Rutgers Marshall 
John Rutgers Marshall was the son of John and Elsje Marshall, 
having been baptized in the Dutch Church in New York City on 
June 22, 1743. He married Sarah Bryan, of Milford, Connecticut. 
He was a merchant in Stratford, Connecticut, and was living there 
in 1 771, when he decided to go to England to be ordained for the 
ministry. For eighteen years he was pastor in Woodbury, Con- 
necticut, during which time he was twice dragged into the street 
and beaten on account of his loyalty to the king. He had nine 
children. 

Philip Pell 

Philip Pell was born on July 7, 1753. He was the oldest son 
of Philip Pell and Glorianna Treadwell Pell, and the great-grand- 
son of Thomas Pell, who inherited Pelham Manor from his father, 
John Pell, to whom it was granted by Governor Dougan in 1687. 
In 1776 Philip Pell was commissioned lieutenant and commissary 
of prisoners, but his name does not appear in the register of Conti- 
nental officers. In 1777 he was deputed judge-advocate of the 
Continental Army. He married Mary Ward on July 26, 1777, and 
after her death in 1781, he married Ann Lewis. He had one son, 
Philip, Jr., born in 1780. 

Our alumnus was elected a member of the New York Assembly 
from 1779 to 1 78 1 and from 1784 to 1786 from the county of West- 
chester. He was sheriff of that county in 1787 and surrogate from 
March, 1787, to October, 1800. He was a member of Congress 
in 1788, and one of the first regents of the University of the State 
of New York in" 1784. From 1781 to 1783 he was judge-advocate 
general of the United States Army. He died in 181 1 at the age 
of fifty-seven years. 



19 lo] Kings College Alumni 47 

KINGS COLLEGE ALUMNI— VII* 

CLASS OF 1 771 

IcHABOD Best Barnet 

Ichabod Best Barnet received the degree of master of arts from 
Kings College in 1774. Little is known of him excepting that his 
subject at Commencement was "Cheerfulness." It is likely that he 
was not a resident of the city of New York, inasmuch as his family 
was apparently located on the east bank of the Hudson, not far from 
the town of Hudson. 

Clement Cooke Clarke 

Clement Cooke Clarke delivered an English oration on " Virtue " 
at his graduation in 1771, and received the master's degree in 1774. 

John Copp 

John Copp delivered a salutatory oration in Latin on " Fame " 
when he received his A.B. degree in 1771, and was awarded the 
master's degree in 1774. On June 28, 1775, he was made first 
lieutenant in the First New York Regiment, in which he continued 
to serve until January, 1776. He then became captain in the Fourth 
New York Regiment, of which John Nicholson was colonel, and 
from November 21, 1776, until his resignation March 26, 1779, 
he was captain of the eighth company of Colonel Goose Van 
Schaick's First Regiment of New York Continentals. While serv- 
ing in Colonel Nicholson's regiment, our alumnus took part in the 
fight at Quebec in 1776. It is believed that our alumus became a 
teacher after the war, and that he married Ann Clopper on March 
27, 1772. 

Henry De Wint 

Henry De Wint delivered a Latin address on " Moderation " at 

Commencement. He was awarded the degree of master of arts in 

1774- 

*The sixth installment of this series appeared in the Quarterly for June, 
1910 (pp. 275-285). 



48 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

Thomas Knox 

Thomas Knox was on the side of the King during the Revolu- 
tionary War, and in 1783 petitioned for land to be granted to him in 
Nova Scotia. At graduation he held the negative in the English 
forensic dispute on the question " Whether a lively imagination is 
conducive to happiness." 

John Searle 

John Searle was awarded the master's degree in 1774. Noth- 
ing is known of him excepting that at his graduation he had the 
affirmative of the dispute in which Knox had the negative. 

CLASS OF 1772 
Thomas Barclay 

Thomas Barclay is supposed to be descended in the fifth genera- 
tion from Colonel David Barclay of Urie, who was born in 1610. 
The great grandfather of our alumnus was John Barclay, and the 
grandfather was the Rev. Thomas Barclay, the first rector of St. 
Peter's Church in Albany. His father was the Rev. Henry Barclay, 
an alumnus of Yale in 1734 and rector of Trinity Church from 1746 
to 1764, the year of his death; and his mother was Mary, daughter 
of Col. Anthony Rutgers. His parents had five children, of whom 
Anna Dorothea married Lieutenant Colonel Beverly Robinson of 
the class of 1773 of Kings College. 

The eldest of the five children of Henry Barclay was our alum- 
nus, Thomas H. Barclay, who was born October 12, 1753. On 
October 2, 1775, he married Susannah DeLancey, who died in 1837. 
He was admitted to the Bar and entered the office of John Jay, In 
1780 he became major in the corps of Light Infantry and served in 
Virginia and Carolina. While on his way from Charleston to the 
Chesapeake with dispatches from Lord Rawdon to Earl Cornwallis, 
he was captured by the French fleet, but was soon exchanged and 
rejoined his regiment, with which he remained until it was dis- 
banded in the spring of 1783. In the fall of that year he took his 
family to Nova Scotia and engaged in farming at Wilmot. His 
estates in the United States were confiscated. In 1789 he com- 
menced the practice of law at Annapolis Royal, and was soon elected 



1910] Kings College Alumni 49 

to the provincial assembly. For several years he was speaker of the 
Assembly. In 1792 he was made lieutenant colonel of the Royal 
Nova Scotia Regiment, and in 1793 he was made adjutant general 
of the militia of the province. In 1796 he was appointed a com- 
missioner for the British under Jay's Treaty, and in 1799 was made 
British Consul General for the eastern states of America, resident 
at New York. He held this office until 181 2. Two years later he 
was appointed British Commissioner under the Treaty of Ghent, in 
which service he continued until 1828, when he retired from the 
office. He died on April 21, 1830, at New York at the age of 
seventy-seven years. He was generally known as Thomas Barclay, 
but his baptismal name was probably Thomas H. Barclay, since his 
marriage license and the act of attainder of New York in 1779 
called him so. 

Our alumnus had ten children, of whom Henry married Catha- 
rine, the daughter of Robert Watts of the class of 1760 of Kings 
College, and Susan married Peter G. Stuyvesant of the class of 1794 
of Columbia College. He was a cousin of James Barclay of the 
class of 1766 of Kings College. Selections from the correspondence 
of Thomas Barclay were edited in 1894 by George L. Rives, '68, 
and published by Harper and Brothers in a volume of 429 pages. 

John Bowden 
John Bowden was born in Ireland in 1751. He was ordained 
an assistant of Trinity Church, New York, in 1774. On January 
8, 1775, he married Polly, the daughter of James Jarvis of New 
York. In the same year he received the degree of master of arts 
from Kings College. At the commencement of hostilities he went 
to Norwalk, Connecticut. Later he removed to Long Island, and 
after the war to England. In 1789 he took charge of a church in 
the West Indies, remaining there until 1801. Then he returned 
to New York and was made professor of moral philosophy, belles 
lettres and logic in Columbia College, which chair he continued to 
fill until the year of his death, which occurred in 181 7 at the age of 
sixty-six years. His portrait, the only one of the early graduates 
of Kings College in possession of the University, hangs in the 
Library. He had three sons, of whom James J. graduated from 



50 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

Columbia in 1813 and was rector of St. Mary's Church, Maryland. 
The following books written by John Bowden are in the Columbia 
University Libraiy : 

A letter from John Bowden, Rector of St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, 

to the Rev. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, New 

Haven, 1788, pp. 52. 
A' letter from John Bowden, Rector of St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, 

to the Rev. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, New 

Haven, 1789, pp. 108. 
Apostolic origin of Episcopacy. New York, 1808, pp. 384. 
Essentials of ordination stated in a letter to a friend. New York, 

1812, pp. 22. 
A defence of the essentials of ordination, in answer to a pamphlet 

entitled " Serious thoughts." New York, 1812, pp. 53. 
Address of John Bowden to the members of the Episcopal Church 

in Stratford. New Haven, n. d., pp. 39. 

John King 
John King Avas appointed by the English commander. General 
Pattison, a conductor of stores in February, 1779, and afterwards 
he became commissioner of police in New York City. He was un- 
married, and at the end of the war he went to Shelbourne, Nova 
Scotia. 

Nicholas Ogden 
Nicholas Ogden was born in 1754 and died in 181 2, at the age 
of fifty-eight years. He was appointed by General Pattison ad- 
jutant of one of the battalions of militia in the city of New York 
on August 12, 1780. 

Peter Roebuck 
Peter Roebuck was awarded the degree of master of arts in 
1775- 

Andrew Skene 

Andrew Skene was born on March 25, 1753. His father was 
Colonel Philip Skene, and he is sometimes called Andrew Philip 
Skene. He was in the British Army as brigadier major and 
captain of dragoons, serving as subaltern in the Sixth Dragoons and 
as captain in the Ninth Dragoons. He died at Durham, England, 
in January, 1826, at the age of seventy-three years. 

Leon HARD F. Fuld 



1910] Kings College Alumni 51 

KINGS COLLEGE ALUMNI— VIII* 
CLASS OF 1773 

Cornelius Bogert 

CORNELIUS BOGERT was born October 13, 1754, and died 
February 16, 1832, at the age of 78. His father was John 
who married Abigail Quick on March 16, 1736, and his grand- 
father was Jan the oldest son of Claas, baptized May 5, 1697, ^^^ 
married Hannah Reck on March 10, 171 6. Cornelius was the 
eleventh of fifteen children. He was admitted to practice law on 
October 2, 1775, after receiving the degreeof Bachelor of Arts from 
Kings College in 1773. In September 1775 he also became a militia 
officer. Nicholas and Peter of whom the first was the brother 
next older to him and the other the brother next younger to him 
signed a submission to the king in October, i yy6. Bogert practiced 
his profession until his death on February 16, 1832. He was 
married and had a son John G. Bogert, the Russian Consul at New 
York and the father of Dr. Cornelius R., Mrs. Gerardus Clark and 
Mrs. Henry Kneeland. He also had a daughter Abigail born May 
20, 1774, and died May 8, 1841. She married Robert J. Thurston 
and had four children, as follows : Eliza Ann, who was born July 
I, 1802, and never married; Cornelia Emmeline who married Jesse, 
the son of Gould Hoyt; Louis Marion who married Elizabeth S. 
Brewer and a fourth child who died in infancy. 

Frederick Philipse 

Frederick Philipse was a member of the old Philipse family, 
whose manor came from Adolphe Philipse, who died unmarried 
and intestate in 1749, leaving his nephew Frederick, who was 
born in 1698, as his heir-at-law. This Frederick, the grandfather 
of our alumnus, died in 1751, leaving a widow and six children. 
Of these children the eldest, Frederick, was the father of our 
alumnus. He married Elizabeth Rutgers, widow of Charles Wil- 

* The seventh installment of this series appeared in the Quarterly for Sejh- 
tember, 1910 (pp. 443-446). 



52 Columbia University Quarterly [Dec. 

liams. The second child was Philip, who married Margaret Mars- 
ton, and these were the parents of Nathaniel Philipse of the Class 
of 1773. The third child was Susanna, who married Col. Beverley 
Robinson, father of Beverley Robinson of the Class of 1773. 

Our alumnus Frederick was the son of Frederick, who was the 
last lord of the manor of Philipsburgh. He received the degree of 
Bachelor of Arts from Kings College in i yy^ and accepted a position 
in the English army. He was a Captain of Dragoons and retired 
with the army at the peace. His estates in New York were con- 
fiscated and he died abroad in 1785. 

The following account of the graduation exercises at Kings 
College in 1773 are taken from Rivington's Royal Gazette of May 
18, 1 773 : " Tuesday being the day appointed for the annual com- 
mencement of the graduates of Kings College in this city a very 
numerous and splendid audience assembled at Trinity Church. 
After prayers and a Latin speech by the President, an elegant 
salutatory oration was delivered with great propriety of pronuncia- 
tion and gracefulness of action by Mr. Frederick Philipse. The 
audience was then entertained with a discourse on the happiness of 
connubial life by Mr. Beverley Robinson, whose just observations 
on the subject did him much honor. Degrees were after this con- 
fered on the following gentlemen: Beverley Robinson, Frederick 
Philipse and Nathaniel Philipse." 

Nathaniel Philipse 

Nathaniel Philipse was a cousin of his classmate, Frederick 
Philipse. The father of Nathaniel was the proprietor of the High- 
land Upper Patent and his mother was Margaret Marston. Na- 
thaniel had two brothers — Adolphe, who died young, and Fred- 
erick, a colonel in the British Army, who married first his cousin, 
Mary Marston, and second, Maria, a niece of Viscount Page. 
Philipse was appointed a lieutenant of the 38th Regiment in the 
service of the British King in November, 1775, a captain in May, 
1776, and secretary to Major General Daniel Jones, commander at 
New York, in 1778. He died in England. 



1910] Kings College Alumni S3 

Beverley Robinson 

Beverley Robinson was born March 8, 1 754, and married Anna 
Dorothea Barclay on January 21, 1778. He was descended from 
John Robinson, President of the Virginia Colony on the retirement 
of Governor Cooch in 1734 and afterwards Speaker of the Virginia 
House of Burgesses. The father of our alumnus was Beverley 
Robinson who was born in 1723. He was a major in the British Army 
and present at the storming of Quebec in 1759. He came from 
Virginia to New York and married Susanna, the great-great-grand- 
daughter of Frederick Philipse, the founder of Sleepy Hollow 
Church. Accordingly the two Philipse graduates of the Class of 
1773 were cousins of our alumnus, Beverley Robinson. The father 
of Beverley Robinson died in Thornbury, Gloucestershire, England, 
in 1792, at the age of 69. Beverley refused to subscribe the oath of 
allegiance to the colonial congress. He was commissioned captain 
in the English army and in 1777, was made lieutenant-colonel of the 
Loyal American Guards, of which his father was colonel and 
Thomas Barclay of the class of 1772 of Kings College, major. 

Beverley Robinson with Major Andre settled the prelimi- 
naries with Arnold in the proposed surrender and it was he who 
joined with Arnold in the correspondence intended to instruct 
Washington how the American commander should act in regard to 
Andre who was captured though they escaped. After the war he 
went to New Brunswick and was granted half pay by the govern- 
ment. He lived on his place, Nashwaaksis, on the River St. John, 
opposite Frederickton, N. B. In 1816 he came to this city to visit 
his son Beverley and died at the age of 61. He was buried in St. 
Paul's Churchyard, New York City. 

All of the descendants of our alumnus remained subjects of the 
crown excepting the son Beverley Robinson, Jr., and the grandson 
Henry Barclay Robinson. Beverley Robinson, Jr., who was grad- 
uated at Columbia in the class of 1826, was a lawyer, and died in 
1876. 

Thomas Shreve 

Thomas Shreve was born about 1 752. It is probable that he was 
descended from Caleb, who came from England to New Jersey in 



54 Columbia University Quarterly [Dec. 

1676, and married Sarah, daughter of Derick Areson. Shreve 
received his degree of Bachelor of Arts at Kings College in 1773 
and was a minister. He died in 181 6 at the age of 64. 

Class of 1774 
Isaac Abrahams 

Isaac Abrahams received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from 
Kings College in 1774. Nothing is known of his personal or his 
family history. 

Robert Nicholls Auchmuty 

The ancestry of this man, whose middle name does not appear 
in the catalogue of 1774, is traced to Scotland where Robert, the 
immigrant, was born. He is supposed to have emigrated with his 
father. He had an appointment at the Court of Admiralty and in 
1 74 1 was agent of the colony of Massachusetts in England. He 
died at Boston in April, 1750. His son Samuel, the father of our 
alumnus, was born in Boston on January 16, 1722, and grad- 
uated from Harvard in 1745 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, 
receiving the degree of Master of Arts from the same institution 
in 1746 and the degree of S.T.D. from Kings College in 1767 
and from Oxford, England, in 1774. He was governor of Kings 
College from 1759 to 1764, when he resigned to become rector of 
Trinity Church, New York, on August 28, 1764. Here he con- 
tinued to officiate until his death on March 6, 1777. 

Dr. Auchmuty had three sons : Robert Nicholls, who graduated 
from Kings College in 1774 and Richard and Samuel who both 
graduated from Kings College in 1775. Robert N. Auchmuty and 
his two brothers joined the King's forces after graduation. 

William Chandler 
William Chandler was born in New Jersey, being the son of 
Rev. Dr. Thomas B. Chandler, who was for thirty-eight years rector 
of St. Thomas Church at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Oxford Col- 
lege, in England, gave him the degree of Master of Arts in 1753 
and the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1766, and Kings College 
gave him the degree of Master of Arts in 1758 and the degree of 



igio] Kings College Alumni 55 

Doctor of Divinity in 1767. He graduated at Kings College in 
1774 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In January, 1776, he 
fled on account of his loyalty and parentage, but returned in Decem- 
ber and remained until the evacuation of Elizabethtown by the 
Royal troops in January, i yyy. He states these facts in a memorial 
to Lord George Germain in 1779 and adds that General Skinner 
gave him a warrant to be captain in the New Jersey Volunteers in 
April, 1777, but that he had received no pay for two years. He 
prays his Lordship's recommendation to Sir Henry Clinton for a 
commission. He died in England on October 22, 1784, at the age 
of twenty-eight. 

Edward Dunscomb 
Edward Dunscomb was born in New York on May 23, 1746. 
His father, Daniel Dunscomb, married Maria Aartse on July 24, 
1725, and died in the summer of 1749, as letters of administration 
on his estate were granted on September 13, 1749. Dunscomb 
died on November 12, 18 14, at the age of sixty-eight. He served 
as a lieutenant in the First Regiment of New York Militia Volunteer 
Infantry in 1775 and 1776, as lieutenant in the Fourth Regiment of 
New York Militia Volunteer Infantry subsequently, as lieutenant in 
the Fourth Regiment of New York Continental Infantry in 1776, as 
captain-lieutenant in the same regiment in 1778 and as captain in 
the same regiment in 1780 and 1781. He served as sheriff of New 
York City in 1810 and 181 1 and as trustee of Columbia College 
from 1795 to 18 14. In the Battle of Long Island he was captured 
and made a prisoner. 

Nicholas Heyliger 
Nicholas Heyliger received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from 
Kings College in 1774. Nothing further is known about him. 

John Jauncey 
Little is known of John Jauncey, although the identity of his 
father seems to be fairly well established. John was the son 
of James Jauncey, a sea-captain who came to New York from 
Bermuda in 1 743 with his brother John. They owned many priva- 
teers during the French war. James Jauncey was a wealthy mer- 



56 Columbia University Quarterly [Dec. 

chant, a prominent member of the Presbyterian Church in Wall 
Street, a member of the Provincial Assembly and a founder of the 
Chamber of Commerce. He was a Loyalist, was arrested by the 
Sons of Liberty and sent by them to Middletown, Connecticut. 
After the war his estates were confiscated and he was banished. 
His sons, John, our alumnus, and William Jauncey petitioned on 
January 22, 1790, for a repeal of the decree against their father. 
The repeal was granted in the following April but the father had 
died in London, England, in February, 1790. 

John Jauncey had two brothers, WilHam and James. Wil- 
liam Jauncey was bom in New York on December 17, 1744, grad- 
uated at the College of New Jersey in 1761, never married, and 
died September 19, 1828. James Jauncey was born about 1747, 
graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1763, married on Novem- 
ber 22^, 1773, Eleanor, daughter of Andrew Elliot, and died on 
August 8, 1777, in his thirtieth year without issue. 

Henry Nicoll 

Henry Nicoll is a descendant in the fifth generation from Mat- 
thias Nicoll, a nephew of Col. Richard Nicoll, the first English 
governor of New York. The father of Henry was Benjamin 
Nicoll, Jr., who was born March 17, 1718, and was a founder and 
a governor of Kings College from 1760 until his death in April, 
1763. Our alumnus married Elizabeth, daughter of General 
Nathaniel Woodhull, and they had three children : Edward Holland 
Nicoll, who married Mary, daughter of Solomon Townsend; Eliza 
Woodhull Nicoll, who married Richard Smith, and Henry Wood- 
hull Nicoll, who married Mary, daughter of John Ireland. A 
brother of Henry is Matthias Nicoll, who graduated in the class 
of 1776 at Kings College. 

George Ogilvie 
George Ogilvie was the son of Rev. John Ogilvie, who was 
graduated at Yale College in 1748 and who received the degree of 
Master of Arts from Kings College in 1767 and the degree of 
Doctor of Sacred Theology from both Yale College and Aberdeen 
University in 1 770. His mother was Catharine Sims and his grand- 



ipio] Kings College Alumni 57 

father was William Ogilvie, the youngest son of Sir Walter Ogilvie, 
afterwards Baron Ogilvie of Deskford, Scotland. From 1770 to 
1774, when he died, the father, John Ogilvie, was a governor of 
Kings College. The father of Ogilvie married also Margaret 
Marston, the widow of Philip Philipse, and the mother of Na- 
thaniel Philipse of the class of 1773 Kings College and a sister of 
John Marston of the class of 1760 Kings College. 

Our alumnus was born in New York City on October 16, 1758, 
and after graduation at Kings College in 1774 was commissioned 
in the King's New York Loyalists. After the peace he went to 
England with the loyalists, but returned a few years later and was 
ordained deacon in 1 787, priest in 1 790, and was installed rector of 
Christ church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he remained 
until 1790, when he was called to St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, 
Connecticut. He remained here until 1796 and on October 26 of 
that year he was transferred to Christ Church, Rye, New York, 
where he continued until his death at that place on April 3, 1797, 
at the age of thirty-nine. He was tall and noble-looking. He 
married first on September 4, 1788, Amelia, daughter of Cornelius 
Willett, of Willett's Point, who bore him two daughters : Elizabeth 
Anne, who was born July 20, 1779, and married Thomas Bel- 
den of Fairfield, Conn., and who died on January 16, 1846; and 
Amelia, who was born on December 13, 1780, and married Jabez 
Comstock. After the death of his first wife our alumnus on March 
18, 1 78 1, married the daughter of Dr. McWhorter, of Newark, 
New Jersey, who left no children. 

John Rapelje 

Little is known about John Rapelje. It is not even known posi- 
tively how he spelled his surname, whether Rapalje, Rapelje, 
Rapalye or Rapelye. It has been noted that in 1774, the year in 
which this man received the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Kings 
College, a man of the same surname was a member of the Commit- 
tee of Correspondence in New York and in the next year, 1775, a 
man bearing this name was a member of the Provincial Assembly. 

Rapelje was undoubtedly descended from Joris Jansen de 
Rapalie and Catalyn, daughter of Joris Trico of Paris. There 



58 Columbia University Quarterly [Dec. 

was a John Rapalje at Newton, Long Island, who was in the 
British service and after the war went to Nova Scotia, where he 
married Lemma Boice who came from New Jersey. They had two 
sons, George and Jacob. He died on April 5, 1829. There was also 
in the class of 1791 at Columbia College a George Rapelje who was 
born in New York on August 9, 1771, and was admitted to the Bar. 

Benjamin Seaman 

Benjamin Seaman was descended from Captain John Seaman, 
who came from England about 1635, settled at first in Salem, 
Massachusetts, in 1643 ^"^ afterwards at Hempstead, Long Island, 
in 1657. He was a man of prominence there and held positions of 
trust. He was a Friend and had a very large family, some members 
of whicTi subsequently married and moved to Suffolk, to Staten 
Island and up the Hudson. 

Little is known about our alumnus, but it is believed that he 
was a son of Jacob and Ann Seaman and that he was born on 
November 11, 1753. He was moderate in his views at first, but in 
July, 1783, announced his intention to remove to Nova Scotia. He 
petitioned for a grant of land there and emigrated. His property in 
New York was then confiscated. There are graduates of the name 
of Seaman at Columbia in 1795, 1802, 1804 and 1805. There was 
a Benjamin Seaman, who was chairman of the Committee of Cor- 
respondence when the war began. It is believed however that he 
was not the alumnus of 1774. 

Edward Stevens 

Edward Stevens received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from 
Kings College in 1774 and studied medicine elsewhere. After 
receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine he was appointed Special 
Commissioner to San Domingo in 1 793. In 1 794 he was appointed 
Professor of the Practice of Medicine in Columbia College, succeeding 
Dr. Samuel Nicoll, who graduated from Kings College in the class 
of 1774 with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Dr. Stevens re- 
signed his professorship in 1795. Dr. Nicoll became a trustee of 
the college in 1795 and died in 1796. 



1910] Kings College Alumni 59 

Robert Troup 

Robert Troup was born in New York City in 1757. He was a 
patriot and soon found himself in the ranks of his country's de- 
fenders. He was a lieutenant in the militia of New York City in 
Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Stockholm's regiment and did duty in 
1775. In 1776 the seat of war was transferred to New York, 
where the English commander had reason to expect less violent 
resistance than he had experienced at Boston and where he hoped to 
cut off the east and overawe the center, since he knew he would 
have little to fear from the Southern Colonies. In August Howe 
landed 2C,ooo disciplined troops on Long Island, to meet which 
Washington could send but 8,000 levies and militia, mostly un- 
drilled, inexperienced, poorly equipped and not well armed. The 
pass at Bedford beyond the American left was unguarded and 
General Sullivan, who saw the impossibility of maintaining a solid 
line of defence for five miles with so small a force and no cavalry, 
sent four officers among whom were Robert Troup, our alumnus, 
and his classmate, Edward Dunscomb, to reconnoitre the enemy. 
These young men were lieutenants in the First New York Regi- 
ment under command of Colonel McDougall, some of which had 
been to Canada with Montgomery at the attack of Quebec. They 
were volunteers now with Sullivan and in the attempt to perform 
the duty assigned to them they were captured at three o'clock on the 
morning of the twenty-seventh of August by the advancing army, 
which immediately passed into the American lines almost unan- 
nounced and the day was decided. Troup was exchanged on 
December 9, 1776. He was afterward major aide-de-camp to 
General Gates in October, 1777, and secretary of the Board of War 
in February, 1778, This position he resigned on February 8, 1780. 
His complete military record was as follows : Second Lieutenant of 
First Regiment of New York Militia Volunteer Infantry, 1775; 
Captain Lieutenant of Second Regiment of Continental Corps Ar- 
tillery, 1777; Major and Aide to Major-General Gates, 1777; 
Lieutenant-Colonel and Deputy Muster Master General, 1777; Sec- 
retary of Board of War, 1778-9. 

Troup was a lawyer by profession and was also awarded 
the degree of LL.D, Soon after the close of the war he removed 



6o Columbia University Quarterly [Dec. 

to Geneva, New York, where he became the agent of Sir William 
Pulteney's estates in western New York. He married Janet, daugh- 
ter of Peter Goelet. He had two sons who died unmarried and one 
daughter who married James L. Brinkerhoff. Some of his de- 
scendants are now living in New York City. Troup was a 
member of the New York legislature, and in 1796 was appointed 
Judge of the District Court of the United States for this district. 
He was a trustee of Columbia College from 181 1 until his resigna- 
tion in 181 3. He died in New York City on January 14, 1832, at 
the age of 75. 

The following pamphlets written by our alumnus are in the 
library of Columbia University : 

1. A vindication of the claim of Elkanah Watson, Esq., to 
the merit of projecting the lake canal policy as created by the canal 
act of March, 1792, and also a vindication of the claim of the late 
General Schuyler to the merit of drawing that act and procuring its 
passage through the legislature. By Robert Troup, Esq., Geneva, 
N, Y., 1 82 1, 8vo, pp. 23 + 38. 

2. A letter to the honorable Brockholst Livingston, Esq., one of 
the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, on the 
lake canal policy of the State of New York. Robert Troup, Esq. 
With a statement of additional documents. Albany, 1822. 8vo, 

PP- 38 + 34 + 42 + 5- 

3. Remarks on the Trinity Church Bill. New York, 1846. 
8vo, pp. 89. 

Leon HARD Felix Fuld 



|Rri/iii.t('d from The Columbia University Qtiaktekly, Vol. XIII., No. 4, Sept., lyti.l 

KINGS COLLEGE ALUMNI— IX* 
CLASS OF 1775 

William Amory 

NOTHING is known of the family or personal history of Wil- 
liam Amory. 

Richard Auchmuty 

During the Revolution Richard Auchmuty took the side of the 
King and became a sergeant in the British Army. He was taken 
a prisoner at the storming of Stony Point and was w'ith Cornwallis 
at Yorktown. He died soon after the surrender in the year 1782, 
while on parole. 

Samuel Auchmuty 

Samuel Auchmuty, a distinguished general who attained his 
rank by merit alone, was born in New York in 1756. His grand- 
father, a prominent Scotch law^yer, had established himself at 
Boston in the reign of William III and his father, after being edu- 
cated at Llarvard and Oxford, had become rector of the principal 
Episcopal church in New York. Our alumnus, with his father and 
his uncle, who w^as Judge of the High Court of Admiralty in 
Boston, declared for the King at th.e outbreak of the war. Young 
Samuel entered the British army and was present with the f:)rty- 
fifth regiment at the battles of Brooklyn and White Plains, lie 
had been intended by his father for th.e ministry, but th.e young 
man's inclinations w^ere from boyhood military. He was revardi d 
in 1777 by an ensigncy, and, in 1778, was given a lieutenancy in 
the forty-fifth regiment wdthout purchase. On the conclusion of 
peace he went to England with his regimicnt, but soon found it im- 
possible to live on his lieutenant's pay or to expect any promotion in 
England. In 1783 he exchanged into the fifty-second refriment, 
then under orders for India, and w^as at once made adjutant. lie 
saw service in the last w^ar w-ith Hyder Ali and, in 1788, was pro- 

* The eighth installment of this series appeared in the Quarterly for 
December, 1910 (pp. 77-86). 

61 



62 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

moted to a captaincy of the seventy-fifth regiment. Lord Corn- 
wallis perceived his aptitude for Indian w^arfare and made him a 
brigade major in 1790, in which capacity he served in the cam- 
paigns of 1790 and 1 791 against Tippoo Sultan, and with Baird's 
division at the siege of Seringapatam in 1792. Lord Cornwallis 
was so pleased with his conduct that he took him to Calcutta, made 
him deputy quartermaster general to the King's troops there and 
soon afterwards (1794) major by brevet. Sir Robert Abercromby, 
the successor of Cornwallis as commander-in-chief, found him 
equally useful and made him lieutenant-colonel by brevet in 1794. 
He acted as Sir Robert's military secretary for three years and 
after serving with him in a short campaign against the Rohillas, 
went home with him in 1797. He had left England a poor lieu- 
tenant and returned after fourteen years' service a lieutenant- 
colonel, with two powerful patrons in Cornwallis and Sir Robert 
Abercromby. He was promoted brevet-colonel and lieutenant- 
colonel of the tenth regiment in 1800, and ordered at once to the 
Cape. There he took command of the mixed force, which had been 
sent to the Red Sea to cooperate with the army coming from 
India for the purpose of assisting Sir Ralph Abercromby in subdu- 
ing the French in Egypt. Baird had learned his merit at Sering- 
apatam, and on his arrival made him deputy general of his whole 
army. It was now that he first gained popular reputation. Baird's 
march across the desert and his passage down the Nile read like a 
story of the Romans and was enjoyed accordingly by the English 
people, and the generals and the lieutenants, notably Beresford and 
Auchmuty, became popular heroes. After the capture of Alex- 
andria, Colonel Auchmuty was for a short time adjutant-general of 
the whole army in Egypt, and on his return to England in 1803 was 
made a Knight of the Bath. From 1803 to 1806 he was com- 
mandant in the Isle of Thanet, and in the latter year was made 
colonel of the one hundred and third regiment and ordered to com- 
mand the reinforcements in South America. 

The English expedition to Buenos Ayres in 1806 had been 
nothing less than a filibustering expedition. It had occurred to 
Sir Home Popham when at the Cape, that the English people and 
ministers would not object to his seizing a rich city like Buenos 



191 1] Kings College Alumni 63 

Ayres, which would open a new channel for trade, even though 
the English were at peace with Spain. He made an easy conquest 
with the help of a small force under Colonel Beresford, which he 
had borrowed from Baird, and he sent home a glowing account of 
his new possession. The people and the ministers were alike de- 
lighted, and Sir Samuel Auchmuty was made a brigadier-general 
and ordered to reinforce Beresford as advance guard of the still 
larger reinforcements. On reaching the River Platte he found 
matters very different from what he had expected. The Spaniards 
had risen and their militia had reoccupied Buenos Ayres and cap- 
tured Beresford and his small force. Sir Samuel disembarked, but 
found it impossible to retake Buenos Ayres or to remain encamped 
in safety on the banks of the river with only four thousand eight 
hundred men. He decided, therefore, to attack the city of Monte 
Video, which, though strongly fortified, was much smaller than 
Buenos Ayres, and he succeeded in storming it after a desperate 
advance with the loss of six hundred men or one-eighth of his 
whole army. When the news of his success reached England, he 
was voted the thanks of Parliament, and the news of the capture of 
Buenos Ayres was confidently expected. But General Whitelocke, 
who superseded him, did not possess his military ability. He pre- 
pared to attack Buenos Ayres, but instead of one or two strong 
attacks on important points, he divided his force into five columns, 
each too weak to make a real impression. Nevertheless, two of 
the columns, including Auchmuty's, did what they were ordered, 
but on hearing that two more had surrendered. General Whitelocke 
made terms with the Spanish commandant Liniers to leave South 
America and give up Monte Video. On his return he was tried by 
court martial and cashiered, but Auchmuty, who had done well what 
he had been ordered to do, was marked out for further advance- 
ment. In 1808 he was made major-general and in 1810 appointed 
commander-in-chief at Madras. At this time Lord Minto was 
governor-general of India, and he had a fixed intention to seize 
all the French possessions in Asia, and also those of their allies, 
the Dutch, in order to secure safe communication with England and 
leave his country the only European power in Asia. He had there- 
fore sent General John Abercromby to take Mauritius in 1810, and 



64 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

in 1811 he ordered Sir Samuel Auchmiity to organize a force for 
the capture of Java. The governor general himself accompanied 
the expedition, which reached Java on August fourth and occupied 
Batavia on August eighth. General Jansens, the Dutch governor, 
had given up the capital as indefensible, and had retired to a strong 
position at Cornelis, which he had fortified. This position Auch- 
muty attacked on August twenty-eighth, but the Dutch made a stub- 
born resistance and were only defeated by the gallant charge of Major 
General Rollo Gillespie, who got behind the position and was the 
hero of the day. The last resistance of the Dutch was overcome at 
Samarang on Sepetember eighth, after which General Jansens sur- 
rendered, and, in October, Lord Minto and Auchmuty returned 
to India. For his services on this occasion the latter received a 
second time the thanks of Parliament and was made colonel of 
the seventy-eighth regiment. In 18 13 he handed over his command 
to John Abercromby and left for England. On his return he was 
promoted to lieutenant-general, but the peace of 181 5 prevented his 
again seeing active service. After being without employment for 
some years, Auchmuty was in 1821 appointed to succeed Beckwithas 
commander-in-chief in Ireland, and was sworn of the Irish Privy 
Council. He did not long enjoy this high command, for he fell 
.off his horse on August 11, 1822, in Phoenix Park, and died 
instantly. He was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, being sixty- 
four years of age at the time of his death. 

Sir Samuel Auchmuty was an extremely able Indian officer, and 
had served with distinction in every quarter of the globe but 
Europe. His great merit is shown by the high rank which he, the 
son of a loyal and therefore ruined American colonist without 
money or political influence, had managed -to attain. 

William Cock 
William Cock received the degree of master of arts from Kings 
College in 1790. He was an attorney at law and a register in 
chancery and had an office at 66 Wall Street, New York. From 
November 6, 1792, to March 12, 1793, he served as a member of 
the New York State Assembly during the sixteenth session, having 
been elected from New York County. Our alumnus probably died 



191 1] Kings College Alumni 65 

in 181 5, as his will, dated May 6, 18 14, by which he gave his 
estate to his wife Ann Cock, was probated on June 7, 181 5. 

Joseph Griswold 
Joseph Griswold resided for several years at 24 Chatham Street, 
New York. 

John William Livingston 
John William Livingston was the son of John Livingston, a 
merchant of New York City, and Catherine DePeyster, his wife. 
He was born in 1754. On June 2, 1777, he married Ann Saunders, 
and they had five children. He was a merchant at 133 Pearl 
Street, and resided at 29 Greenwich Street, New York City. He 
died in 1830. 

Jacobus Remsen 
Jacobus Remsen was born in Brooklyn in 1752 and served as 
a private in the second regiment of ''the Line" during the Revolu- 
tion, this being one of five regiments furnished by New York for 
the Continental Army. 

CLASS OF 1776 

Samuel Bayard 
Samuel Bayard married Catharine Van Home on April 24, 
1778. He is believed to have been a lawyer residing at 30 Cort- 
landt Street, New York City. 

James Devereux 
Nothing is known of the personal history of James Devereux. 

Peter Kissam 
Nothing is known of the personal history of Peter Kissam. 

Matthias Nicoll 

Matthias Nicoll was the son of Benjamin Nicoll, Jr., who was 

one of the founders of Kings College and a governor of the college 

from 1760 until his death in April, 1763. The mother of our 

alumnus was Mary Magdalen Holland. In the pursuit of mercan- 



66 Columbia University Quarterly [Sept. 

tile business in New York, some members of the Beach family be- 
came largely indebted to Benjamin Nicoll, Jr., and he accepted their 
store and other property in Stratford, Connecticut, in payment. 
Accordingly, his son Matthias, our alumnus, who was born on 
October 12, 1758, was placed in charge of the store and thereby 
became a resident of Stratford. He married Ann Taylor of New 
York City on June 4, 1777, and had eleven children. Our alumnus 
died at Stratford on February 11, 1830, at the age of seventy-one 
years. Matthias Nicoll was a past master of St. John's Lodge No. 
8 of Free and Accepted Masons at Stratford, Connecticut. 

Peter Ogden 
Peter Ogden resided for many years in Dey Street and Cort- 
landt Street, New York City. 

Marinus Willett 
Marlnus Willett was a merchant at 36 Water Street, New York, 
until 1790, and was high sheriff from 1790 until 1827. 

Leonhard Felix Fuld 



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